what is meant by gain structure in mastering chain

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Have you checked your software control panel for the interface?  Often there are gain settings that need to be set.

When you say the input is unbalanced do you mean that the actual hardware is unbalanced or that you are feeding from an unbalanced source?

 
ruairioflaherty said:
Have you checked your software control panel for the interface? 

There is no software control panel for the interface...

ruairioflaherty said:
When you say the input is unbalanced do you mean that the actual hardware is unbalanced or that you are feeding from an unbalanced source?

No , the actual inputs of the a/d convertor is unbalanced

skal
 

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Unbalanced is fine, lots of the biggest mastering houses in the world run unbalanced.  Short high quality cables and you will be golden.

If you can't calibrate your ins and outs then you just roll with the 2dB difference.  You'll be making things louder in mastering anyway, consider it some free level  :)
 
ok that sounds cool, so whats my next move round trip with comp .?

yeah just got the Equilibrium eq so i will go with that for the time begining.


cheers again ruairioflaherty


skal
 
Yes go ahead an try the comp and eq individually to see where the freq response problems are coming from.

Equilibrium is a bit fiddly to start with but once you get it set up and save a preset it's great. 
 
ok this s***t is hurting my head ,it is the convertor which is no capturing as it should be :mad: , .

so my ?  is  not convertor i should buy  but what one will get me in the ball park for capturing audio with out missing any bandwidth, got no funds so this is free talk.


ITB it got home those skills, whos got a pre master track i can learn on...


cheers
skal


 
Bummer.  With AD/DA you just need to get the best you can afford when the time comes, work with what you have.  RME make good stuff at the cheaper end of the market, you'll need a pair of stereo D/A and one stereo A/D.

 
hear that might be looking at metric halo , should be good enought i think.


thanks agian for the walk through

skal

 
You mean a place where you can just get mixes that are unmastered?  If so no.

Lots and lots of bands want to get their stuff mastered, you'll have no problem getting some stuff to learn with.

Do you know any recording engineers?  They should be able to hook you up with some albums worth of mixes.
 
yes, i will ask about ....any way  i was thinking could you be my mentor on my journey  ?.


ps. EQuilibrium  seems a bit slow when using 1  plugin , is this normal


cheers

skal
 
skal1 said:
yes, i will ask about ....any way  i was thinking could you be my mentor on my journey  ?.

I'll help where I can, I'm doing the same thing for several people right now.  Time is always the issue and the fact that often text is not the way to communicate complex ideas and concepts.

ps. EQuilibrium  seems a bit slow when using 1  plugin , is this normal

There are lots and lots of settings to optimize the CPU usage.  dig into the menu and do some searching at Gearslutz and you'll find answers.  The manual is pretty good.

I use the IIR setting not FIR and I use the basic DMG filters for almost everything.
 
Proper gain structure and signal path integrity use to be the first thing you learned when starting out to be an audio engineer.  All the great mentors I had in the past were adamant about the subject (of course I'm going back 40 years).  Learn this and you learn good sound.  Don't and you end up in audio peril

Good luck on your quest... it is a noble one.

I'm sure this has been posted before but it's a helpful little scale...
 

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silvertone said:
Proper gain structure and signal path integrity use to be the first thing you learned when starting out to be an audio engineer.  All the great mentors I had in the past were adamant about the subject (of course I'm going back 40 years).  Learn this and you learn good sound.  Don't and you end up in audio peril

Good luck on your quest... it is a noble one.

I'm sure this has been posted before but it's a helpful little scale...

I might be  wrong but not all converters are qualibrated the same so the scale may vary depending on your converters.

@Skal1 For a low budget converter look into the RME ADI-2 it's a good contender.

Thanks a lot Ruairioflaherty the information you gave in this thread is precious!

 
anjing said:
I might be  wrong but not all converters are qualibrated the same so the scale may vary depending on your converters.

You are correct.  Converters are calibrated differently, some are adjustable and some are not. Larry's graphic above gives a good overall sense of how the digital and analog worlds collide.

 
I had a really greay producer/engineer recommend using a good meter on the master buss of my daw. I'm personally on the "quiet" side of the Loudness War, so I use the Dynamic Range Foundation meter. It's perfect for mixing and mastering imho. if you haven't looked that site up, I highly recommend making the 30 dollar donation for access to a download of the plug in (and I'm  in no way affiliated, just love thw product)
 
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