Single Cell Software

Thx, bookmarked!

OMG!!  A spectrum analyzer that you can watch in real time!!??  filters that you "draw" on?!  Jeez...I wish I had stuff like that.  I can't even turn a knob in realtime in audacity.

And having an unmastered track loaded to use as an A/B comparison is absolutely necessary.  He's right about his frequency content, and order of operations, but he clearly knows next to nothing about what can be done with various limiters, clippers, and compressors (I don't know about the one he's using, but the vst limiter I use is FREE, so he could use it).  He knows some common mistakes and tells you to avoid them, but is hazy on why they occur and what can be done about it. (most people are)  Still, by most people's standards, the track improved in a short time.  The YouTube comments ragging on him for overlimiting it are just trolls and haters - you can't look at a sound wave on a screen within another screen and listen to a few seconds of it and say that.  However, I'm an amateur in every sense of the word, and I bet I could give him a run for his money in both knowledge and execution.  

Ten minutes, though?  No way, not in Caustic/Audacity, lol...I generally spend at least an hour or two per track on a "rush" mix & master.  With that program, though, I bet a person - any person - could get the basics done in ten minutes-ish, for the purposes of having a listenable track.

Your final master, obviously involves you listening to the track in it's entirety many times, and I like to make multiple, subtly different versions, that I then compare on multiple types of systems...I mean, you can get as nerdy as you feel like getting.

This is SOOOOOOO COOOOOOL ROB :) thanx :) :)

How did it go, the ideas of having a section for mix/mastering here in the forum?
What if we made a section for both mix/mastering, and an other for the Mod and the Vocoder? Because these pages would be used a lot by people that needs input for all these things.
I know that there´s more machines to consider, but they are not that "strange" as the Mod/Vocoder - neither as essential when it comes to sound manipulation.
It´s so easy to renew the forum to make this happen, I could have done it myself.
Just change the style sheet!
And about the black background; Wouldn´t it be nicer to have a semi light grey bg-color with a light grey (not too white) text color just to ease the eyes? Because, frankly - this is very hard contrasts for the eyes when studying.

I see Jason EIP made his site more reader friendly, that´s much better than this, but even that one - with hard white and hard black - is quite hard on the eyes. Because, a book or a newspaper is not white, and the print is rarely black.
I learned, while studying E-commerce and web solutions that: "Don´t make your customers´ eyes get sore, even if your colors of choice is dead cool. Choose eye friendly colors, and they will come back." The clue is to balance the contrast and visibility.

You can use any color you want, except those who excludes the color-blind people. General rule is to *not* use complemetary colors - especially red/green, red/blue, yellow/pink .... But shades of colors with the same weight value is great, as is pantone - when using it right.
 

Interesting video.  Can someone explain the compressor settings to me and what this achieves e.g. longest attack and shortest release. 

OOH!  Yes ^ this.  I have used this (SPAN) as well, although my copy of audacity doesn't like it very much, and it is a great FREE spectrum analyzer vst.

Rej, if you have time, look at the free limiter called Limiter No.6 (link http://vladgsound.wordpress.com/plugins/limiter6/  )  It blows away anything that friends of mine have, that they paid top dollar for.  It doesn't seem very cpu intensive, at least not in audacity, where you wait for it to finish processing your audio before you get to hear anything.  I realize everybody wants to make adjustments in real-time, but it might be more realistic, specifically in mastering, to apply effects and then undo it if you don't like it.

Well thanks, and I think you know what you're doing, Duran, as far as using the compressor yourself.  But you don't use enough words for my nerdy, yet noticeably fried brain to comprehend your meaning.  Jason knows far more than I do, but his explanations are often all factual (accurate and useful information) about the effects, with no hints as to what you might specifically do to start playing with this information.  If I tell laweffect (not Britt, my mistake) to put a compressor in his second master fx slot and set the threshold to 11 o'clock, and the ratio to 10 o'clock, and the attack to 10 o'clock and the release to 7 o'clock, that gives him a starting point (do it if you like, that's my default, although I fiddle with it for each song).  It might not be right at all, to which I say, "Keep using your ears, and make SMALL adjustments and listen and look for the changes"  Then when he messes with it and wants to know WHY something changes, he can come back and read Jason's info and go "oooohh, now I see what that really means".  Disclaimer:  This is all happening in my head -- might not go down like that at all.  

Britt:  When you talk about colors, I feel like a kindergardner at a lecture on Heidegger.  We all have our strengths.

Thanks for the detailed explanation RR.