Bayesian 1,364 Posted April 18, 2018 Share Posted April 18, 2018 One of the pleasures of being on the JWFan forums for me is steadily learning about the way music is brought to us as consumers. I never realized how technical, artistic, and complex the process can be. My deep admiration goes out to all the people who make that happen. If listening to a live performance is, let's say, a "first generation" experience, what does listening to a CD count as? How many steps are there between a live performance/recording session and hearing the recorded music on your speakers at home? My under-informed guess is about 8 steps: Performance is recorded onto tape (2nd gen) Tape is copied/cloned to a different tape to be worked on by engineers? (3rd gen) Contents of second tape are edited, then stored either digitally or back onto a third tape? (4th gen) This content gets mastered (5th gen) Mastered content gets transferred to a master disc for pressing (6th gen) CDs are pressed (7th gen) CD gets ripped to iTunes or other digital library by consumer (8th gen) As an interested non-engineer, I'd love to know what I got right or wrong in the list above. I liken these steps to the process in photography that leads from "wow, that's a nice shot, let me get my camera out" to a framed picture on the wall -- that is to say, a process with potentially dozens of individual steps and decisions to make along the way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James 119 Posted April 18, 2018 Share Posted April 18, 2018 Before the performance there is the draft, the composition, the official orchestration and I really do not know anything, but it is a job that on average must occupy the hands of about 500 people. It's a lot of work! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kasey Kockroach 2,344 Posted April 18, 2018 Share Posted April 18, 2018 Well, you see my friends, when a mommy orchestrator and a daddy orchestrator love each other very much...they make music! Which is personally delivered to you in convenient compact disc form by hired storks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Ware 526 Posted April 19, 2018 Share Posted April 19, 2018 At a very high-level: Recording -> Editing -> Mixing -> Album editing (and possibly remixing) -> Mastering -> Album production & distribution Most things are recorded to digitally to disk nowadays - it's unlikely that tape will be involved. Bayesian 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Penna 3,695 Posted April 19, 2018 Share Posted April 19, 2018 'Mastering' feels a very wide term to me. If I have to adjust sessions, it will only ever be to boost the volume and trim silences. What other steps would a professional do to 'master' an album? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A24 4,346 Posted April 19, 2018 Share Posted April 19, 2018 5 hours ago, Jim Ware said: Most things are recorded to digitally to disk nowadays - it's unlikely that tape will be involved. Yep, it's all files these days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265 Posted April 19, 2018 Share Posted April 19, 2018 Don't tell that to hipsters! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John 2,032 Posted April 19, 2018 Share Posted April 19, 2018 MP3 is all you need. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unlucky Bastard 7,782 Posted April 19, 2018 Share Posted April 19, 2018 128kbps is about right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sharkissimo 1,973 Posted April 19, 2018 Share Posted April 19, 2018 12 hours ago, Richard Penna said: 'Mastering' feels a very wide term to me. If I have to adjust sessions, it will only ever be to boost the volume and trim silences. What other steps would a professional do to 'master' an album? The big four are the following: Equalization - In a contemporary studio this is more likely to be a parametric (either minimum phase or linear phase) rather than graphic EQ as they allow a finer adjustment of frequency bands. Dynamic range compression - Either multiband or single band. There a number of fancy techniques here like parallel compression (balancing an uncompressed mix with a compressed mix) and side-chain compression (that cheesy 'pumping' effect you hear in EDM tunes--essentially an input (usually a four-to-the-floor kick drum) triggers the mix to 'duck' whenever it hits Limiting - involves setting the maximum output gain and adjusting the input gain; attack and release, link control, gain reduction and clipping. Too much here to explain. Noise reduction - Uses noise gates and expanders to attenuate high and quiet noise artifacts respectively, and likewise low-pass and high-pass filters for high frequency and low frequency artifacts. Jim Ware 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Ware 526 Posted April 20, 2018 Share Posted April 20, 2018 21 hours ago, Stefancos said: Don't tell that to hipsters! I wonder if that notorious hipster Michael Giacchino is having The Incredibles 2 recorded analogue to tape.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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