Yikes... I just produced a CD for money and all !! Help.

[gjm]

Go figure

Now, to be frank, its not what any of you would call serious. Not even close. I actually got paid a small sum of money though.

Abridged version.
Student comes every week for lesson.
I record each lesson as a matter of course
Student is going to see grandma in Australia
Mother asks if I can record some of students playing for gift
I say... Already have
I harvest recordings, fix some mistakes and add other instruments
Create CD, deliver, and get paid.

Me likey doing this

I feel sheepish for not paying attention to some of the threads regarding mixing and mastering but I have a couple of questions, cause I can see doing this again $$ Where do I start when looking for Software to help with the final touches of doing what I did.

1. When I checked the final disk the tunes had no track names when the disk went into the computer.
2. It could not be played on a normal CD player.
3. The tunes all had slightly different overall sound levels.
4. Other small details that pissed me off.

I do not have any great ambition to be wonder boy producer, just want to add another facet to my little cottage operation to help pay the bills.

Thanks in advance. G.

[SubFunk]

I am on the iPhone right now... Will write some advise once i am back home...

[gjm]

Thanks for that. I will investigate.

4. I can't help you with your personal problems

How did you know I had mental health problems??

[leedsquietman]

I use Soundforge 9 and CD Architect 5 to produce red book compliant CDs. (CD Architect comes for free with the FULL soundforge, or can be bought stand alone).

Mastering - one of the biggest points of mastering is to get an even flow and volume, so this needs to be taken care of if you want reciprocal business. Soundforge or other audio editors (even some DAWS such as Cubase) provide detailed statistical analysis (tools, statistics in SF). When analyzing a file, pay attention to the peak and RMS volumes.

You can also use the detect peak clipping tool and use specialized tools such as clipped peak restoration, noise reduction or whatever else. You want to aim for an RMS level which is at least in the ballpark of a commercial release but don't overcook it. I am in favour of dynamics and stay out of loudness wars, so am happy to do my rock albums at -12 or -13 RMS, dance music a couple of dBs louder, unless it is an ambient or more dynamic dance record, but an in your face. Tasteful use of compression/limiting, too much will pump the volume but cause artifacts. Remember, commercial mastering uses unbelievably expensive converters such as Lavrys, high end digital clocking to reduce jitter, often really expensive outboard gear, which can really pump up a mix further than software mastering and sound better, you can't match those levels without compromising sound quality with a Waves L2 plugin or Izotrope Ozone etc.

Obviously, the mix itself is key to being successful, if you left enough headroom, it works a lot better than if you mixed too hot - I tend to mix with more transient things such as drums peaking no more than -5dB (will probably throw a limiter on to catch the odd stray peak), and instrument tracks which typically have fewer rogue transients (after compression.dynamic taming if necessary), at a maximum peak level of -9dB. In a busy mix with lots of tracks, I probably leave even more headroom than this, as you can overload the mix buss if you have too many things going on at once, which leads to either distortion, or a really dull, lifeless sound.

CD Architect - use the CD Text titling option and that is read by most car stereos, modern CD players and DVD players playing back a CD. Not every playback device will read CD titling though, it will give a generic 'track 1' etc. Windows media player included.

If your recording was originally 24 or 32 bit files, did you dither them after mixing and then save as 16 bit / 44.1 Khz .wav or .aiff - this is the format required to burn to CD and convert to .cda CD Audio files.

Which other 'small details' pissed you off ?? Could the audio files you made play back on a computer or DVD player - convert them to 16 bit / 44.1 Khz wav/aiff and they will burn fine.

[Radio Arcade]

over 2000 posts on the ableton forum and you dont know how to burn a cd - priceless

[gjm]

over 2000 posts on the ableton forum and you dont know how to burn a cd - priceless

I am proud to make up my portion of the bottom dwellers in this world

[Radio Arcade]

over 2000 posts on the ableton forum and you dont know how to burn a cd - priceless

I am proud to make up my portion of the bottom dwellers in this world

Goog on you son

[SubFunk]

i am at home now and to late as i can see , at this point i don't know what to add to leedsquiteman who wrapped it up pretty nicely without taking the second step before the first one... follow his advise first i say and then ask more specific problems when you get stuck again...

[gjm]

I use Soundforge 9 and CD Architect 5 to produce red book compliant CDs. (CD Architect comes for free with the FULL soundforge, or can be bought stand alone).

There is some mail in my inbox re SoundForge Pro 10. I'll take a look. I am on this macbook now, so would preffer to stay with compatible programs. I gave the wife my Quad 6600 (silly me), and there is no way in hell she is giving it back.

Mastering - one of the biggest points of mastering is to get an even flow and volume, so this needs to be taken care of if you want reciprocal business. Soundforge or other audio editors (even some DAWS such as Cubase) provide detailed statistical analysis (tools, statistics in SF). When analyzing a file, pay attention to the peak and RMS volumes.

Cool, look for Analysis tools.

CD Architect - use the CD Text titling option and that is read by most car stereos, modern CD players and DVD players playing back a CD. Not every playback device will lost CD titling though, it will give a generic 'track 1' etc. Windows media player included.

Thanks

If your recording was originally 24 or 32 bit files, did you dither them after mixing and then save as 16 bit / 44.1 Khz .wav or .aiff - this is the format required to burn to CD and convert to .cda CD Audio files.

No. I only got Live 8 2 days ago. I have to look into dithering then. Ha... this I can tell is gonna be a circus.

Which other 'small details' pissed you off ??

Time between tunes.
One track sounding tinny, 1 track bass heavy.
The differences in sound ( what was highlighted) between my listening devices ie monitors and headphones.

So I know its a combination of gear, software and skills. *sigh*
Mommy... wears my blanky


Thanks leeds

[gjm]

i am at home now and to late as i can see , at this point i don't know what to add to leedsquiteman who wrapped it up pretty nicely without taking the second step before the first one... follow his advise first i say and then ask more specific problems when you get stuck again...

Cool, Thanks for that.

[SubFunk]

by the way i love your attitude to charge / make money out of a service, even you are not "there yet" to deliver the maybe / or standard expected level of results, but this way you will learn way better and faster what it boilers down to, then the people who keep on talking about it forever...

we have a saying in german... that no master falls from the sky, but to become one you need to do.

[UKRuss]

[
Time between tunes.
One track sounding tinny, 1 track bass heavy.
The differences in sound ( what was highlighted) between my listening devices ie monitors and headphones.

So I know its a combination of gear, software and skills. *sigh*
Mommy... wears my blanky


Thanks leeds

This is where you need external mastering assistance really, but if you are going to do it yourself then some of the software already mentioned can do it for you in terms of fades and time between tracks etc.

As for some tinny some bassy, it can only be fixed so much by mastering, really you need to think about consistent recording capture and consistent mixing tools and approach first, this will help no end.

[SubFunk]

[
Time between tunes.
One track sounding tinny, 1 track bass heavy.
The differences in sound ( what was highlighted) between my listening devices ie monitors and headphones.

So I know its a combination of gear, software and skills. *sigh*
Mommy... wears my blanky


Thanks leeds

This is where you need external mastering assistance really, but if you are going to do it yourself then some of the software already mentioned can do it for you in terms of fades and time between tracks etc.

As for some tinny some bassy, it can only be fixed so much by mastering, really you need to think about consistent recording capture and consistent mixing tools and approach first, this will help no end.

yup,

and about the time between tracks... it's always good to record or render with a little silence in the beginning and end (you really always should do that, avoids possible artifacts and clicks, etc.), i personally add at least 0.5 seconds and then if i need more add some in my editor (Peak) whatever amount you add, just stick to a 'fixed' amount, this way later you can precisely define in a playlist creator in an editor how much gap you add (usual default is 2 seconds between tracks) this way whatever you add you have the same gap between tracks... like in my example if i use the default i get a constant 3 second gap between my tracks, 2 seconds default plus 0.5 on the beginning and end of each track...

and by the way, most audio editors allow you a quick and dirty way to fix volume unbalances between tracks within there playlist creation... maybe you should check if that is enough for you, it really is in many cases, before you go into fixing it by "mastering"

just try one step after the other...

[SubFunk]

i am at home now and to late as i can see , at this point i don't know what to add to leedsquiteman who wrapped it up pretty nicely without taking the second step before the first one... follow his advise first i say and then ask more specific problems when you get stuck again...

How rude!

I answered his questions in order without being anal and overwhelm him with too much info.

The simple fact is he doesn't know how to burn an audio cd so you pitch your response differently.

he? what did i do wrong? i did not meant to offend anyone!!!

what's wrong around here lately, do you all have your period or what? first Tone yesterday, now you?

or i am wrong and the ass?

sorry if i stepped on your toe, rave. it was not intended.

[SubFunk]

No worries, rather say something before rather than later - especially if it is someone i like
Maybe it's a cultural / written text thing fella but your post read like a criticism to my own response.

Water under bridge now

now about since a year back in germany is not doing good for my english is it?

but honestly how can it be a criticism towards your post if i not even mentioned it, or is it the fact that i did not mentioned it that you said something valuable as well... ?

i like to understand and learn how to express myself in the future to avoid that.