MAOR APPELBAUM: Taming Harshness with Converters, Mastering for Vinyl, Fixing Muddy Mixes

Speaker 1 (00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, brought to you by Creative Live, the world's best online classroom for creative professionals with classes on songwriting, engineering, mixing and mastering. The Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast is also brought to you by isotope crafting innovative audio products that inspire and enable people to be creative. And now your host, Joey Sturgis. Joel Wanasek and Eyal Levi.

Speaker 3 (00:23):

Alright guys, welcome to another Mix Crit Monday, except this time it's Mastering Crit Monday we're going to listen to some masters from various subscribers and we'll tear 'em apart a little bit. We have a special guest with us as well who does a lot of mastering and I'll let someone else introduce him just in case I mess up his name.

(00:47):

Yeah, this is my buddy, Maor Applebaum, who I've worked with a few times. You mastered one of my bands records and then also my solo record and have sent you a few records and man, you do a lot of work. You are always mastering a million bands, man. How do you do it?

Speaker 4 (01:09):

I have a million hands.

Speaker 5 (01:12):

Yeah, that's all it takes.

Speaker 4 (01:14):

Yeah, no. Well, to be honest with you, first of all, I really love what I'm doing and I think the secret to doing things in either big quantities or big qualities is really loving what you're doing. So I invest in it all the time and effort I can, and of course it's also money that you have to put into it to keep it running the gear and keep relevant. So I just love doing this and I like all types of music from all over the world and different styles, territories, and sounds.

Speaker 3 (01:47):

I know that when I first met you, when you first mastered something for me, I think in 2009 or 2010, I went to your place and you didn't have very much gear yet. You had some really good stuff, but man, over the years your setup has just grown and grown and now it's like immense. It's pretty awesome how much you've grown over the years. It's pretty cool.

Speaker 5 (02:14):

So what are some of your favorite pieces of equipment that you're using presently?

Speaker 4 (02:19):

Well, like Al mentioned, I always add more gear. I'm not stuck to one specific thing. I like to flow with what the recording needs and I'm not just going to put it through one EQ that costs 14 grand because it costs that amount. I'm always going to check what fits best and work with that. And thank you for the kind words ayal about the growth and the gear and I just like to invest in it and I just put back into it the pieces of gear that I like best. I like a lot of types of EQs and compressor stores. There's not one thing, I have a mastering console which I really like, which is it's a mastering console and I like very much, I use EQs like Weiss and I use eq. I have a modified API. It doesn't sound like an API. It sounds a bit different, but I like that very much and I like millennia and it's just different, not just one thing, it's really per project, but I think that the Y cqs are great. The millennials are also great for tone if you want to have some coloration that is sparkling. I like that as well.

Speaker 3 (03:35):

Do you ever mess with this vinyl mastering or any of the analog mastering, like printing it to tape?

Speaker 4 (03:42):

Well, a lot of the stuff I do actually goes to vinyl because I do a lot of niche markets like Prague, rock psychobilly or experimental music and even acoustic stuff. A lot of it is getting printed all the time all over the world for vinyl as well. So I try to make the best sounding master I can that would fit the various mediums from compressed files like MP threes and weight files and high resolution files. And some of it even goes to cassettes, which I know is kind of funny, but actually there are cassettes being made now again, so a lot of it goes to other mediums. One thing that is important to tell is you can read a lot of information online about how to prep the vinyl, but the honest truth is don't do that. Let the professionals cut it. When I set it to vinyl, I leave them to do what they need to do because their equipment is set for that and they know how to work that out. So I don't try to do special stuff that can ruin it. It's very important to know that you did your best and it fits where the markets and the mediums you work with, let them adjust it to the physical mediums.

Speaker 2 (05:05):

Totally. That's cool. But

Speaker 4 (05:06):

I've done a lot of analog. I mean most of my setup by the way is analog.

Speaker 2 (05:11):

I've heard that this may or may not be true, correct me if I'm wrong, but I heard you created some sort of mastering process that's kind of proprietary, is that right?

Speaker 4 (05:22):

Yes, it is. I didn't promote it. It was intended for, or originally was intended for producers or mixers who mastered our own stuff and they were limited by what their plugins could do in terms of how the ceiling of it sounded like, how the high end or low end when it was pushed to the max and it kind of sounded a bit too digital if you want to call that the word. And this process has actually been used on a lot of projects. It's not being spoken of really because I didn't want people to start sending me crappy mastered mixes and hoping that this would be the solution, but this came up as a need for those people and also as a need for there, there was a period where I was starting to get mixes that were really so slammed that they really need that help and it's being used even on some major stuff. It's not named in a way, it's just part of a process, but it really helped a lot of things sound more natural to the ear and less fatiguing.

Speaker 2 (06:36):

That's awesome. Yeah, so in other words, you're very qualified to be critiquing these people's masters

Speaker 4 (06:44):

If you want to use that as an opening line. Good pickup line.

Speaker 3 (06:50):

That's a great segue actually.

Speaker 2 (06:52):

So we have, it looks like three songs. All three of these people are subscribers, is that right?

Speaker 3 (06:58):

Yes.

Speaker 2 (06:58):

Okay, so that's pretty cool. We have different genres of music as well. I don't know, do you guys want to just go ahead and get started right with the first one?

Speaker 3 (07:08):

Yeah, let's do it. We'll start with the song called Purgatory by the Band Gardas Mission and from subscriber Chris Finster.

Speaker 6 (07:52):

Now that I'm here.

Speaker 3 (09:07):

Okay, so this is the song Purgatory by the Band Gurus mission in our wonderful subscriber Chris Finster. So Joel, what do you think?

Speaker 5 (09:17):

Alright, so when I listen to this, when I listen to the mix, I feel like the top is a little bit harsh in some spots and I feel like the mid range is kind of off. There's some boxy sections as well of some parts that are really clean, so it's kind of like a weird, what's the word I'm looking for? What ends up happening is there are certain frequencies and areas and regions in the mid range that seem like they're not right, but then there's others that feel like they're right on the money. So I feel like the mid-range needed to be cleaned up and the sub in the kick drum is personally killing me. So when then I go and listen to the master, I feel like it needed to be compressed a little bit more because the mix really wasn't gelling enough and I still feel like in the master he should have hit it a little bit harder with compression, my personal opinion and I feel like the bottom is still a little bit boomy and another major critique I had was I feel like the top end is still just a little bit harsh.

(10:14):

There's just that region that we always talk about that I feel like isn't quite right and I think a little bit of surgical EQ on some of that nastiness or maybe a little bit of linear for example as we've talked about, would be a good solution for something like that. So those were the main things for me.

Speaker 2 (10:31):

Yeah, my two big critiques for this was basically I felt like it was lacking energy and that probably comes from the lack of either gel or compression or whatever dynamics. And then the second note or critique that I had was the low end was a little bit too floppy. It's definitely kind of hanging pretty loose around in everything below probably 200 hertz.

Speaker 3 (11:02):

Yeah, I honestly feel exactly the same way you guys did, but Joey, I'm just going to jump in and say that the word energy, that's the perfect way to sum up what I felt was lacking here. And I got to say that I feel like the song itself does have energy. So whenever something like that is deficient, I try to think is it the song, is it the mix? Is it the master? What is it? But listening to the song, I definitely feel like the artist has feeling and there is energy in the performance. I definitely do think that it's somewhere in the mixed master stage and I feel like getting that low end more focus would make a huge difference.

Speaker 2 (11:47):

Let's hear what Maor has to say about this

Speaker 4 (11:51):

In some way. I'm a bit different than you in some way. I'm close to what you said regarding, let's start with the high end, which is something Joel was talking or was mentioning. I actually from listening to the mix and the master, of course there is something in that high end, which I understand what bother Joel, but I actually think that there was something really interesting in that high end. If it was tweaked white, it would create some kind of ambience. If I would approach that song, I would actually use that high end to create depth and I think that it's just about taming it in the right way to keep that sizzle and it would create a feel like there's something happening on the top, which I think is important and gets lost in a lot of masters today. This is kind of an eighties thing that was existing then and in some masters that I work on, I actually keep that so it had in the mix too much of it, but if you just adjust enough it will keep that sizzle we're in the master that was lost

Speaker 3 (13:06):

Out of curiosity, so say you want to keep the high end intact but just tame it a bit so you can keep that sizzle. What would be the first thing you would do in order to tame it?

Speaker 4 (13:20):

I would check which converter would not make it trill but still keep part of it. That's why I use different types of gear because I want to find which one attacks the issue in the least destructible way. So I wouldn't go by looking for what frequency it is because it's a combination of frequencies. We're talking here a lot of the high mids and the highs together. That's why you feel to you it's annoying because it's a combination of a lot of them and that's why it bothers, but I think it's just taming or rounding off the edges of it to a point where it's not lost. If you want to think frequency wise, it will be all the range from 5K and above, but I wouldn't go EQ wise and tame it. I would just see which converter sounds best with it and doesn't take it down too much.

Speaker 2 (14:21):

That's a cool approach. That's a really cool approach. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (14:24):

How many different converters do you have to work with?

Speaker 4 (14:28):

Let me count them. 1, 2, 3, 4. I have around five converters. It's also configurations. So I can use a D two A that is like a tape sounding D two A and then a normal sounding converter or whatever fits, but it's around five, but usually you can pick that up very fast and see, okay, I don't need the whole five to test, I can go two or three just because knowing the converter in this case, but it's not every, some converters will emphasize it, some will be almost there and only a few will be the right ones to tackle this issue. So that's why you can have a lot, but you got to really know which one to work with on that because to me that sizzle was part of what I like in it, it gives depth. The other thing I thought, by the way, you guys might not agree with me, I understand that it's just how I noticed it. I thought that the intensity of the mix was tamed too much in the master because if when I listened to how the drums are presented, the glue, maybe you can say it's not enough or it's too much, but it was not sitting in the right place instead of giving me excitement, it just held it too much so the energy was contained, it didn't come out, so I thought it was too much tamed in the master and maybe because of that sizzle being lost, I also lost the depth.

Speaker 3 (16:15):

So how would you go about keeping it not tamed I guess? Absolutely.

Speaker 4 (16:19):

Well first of all, I would tighten up the low end in a way that I feel the attack of the kick, but I don't get the delay in the low end. A lot of times what happens with kicks, especially triggers because they're very sliced, the low end when it's compressed, you kind of feel like there's a delay in that low end. It doesn't sit with the thump that happens, especially with samples because they're so quantified When the compressor's not set well, it just takes that original timing and stretches. It kind of gives it over sustain and a lot of times that's perceived as not tight. So I would first of all tighten the low end. I would try to see sometimes it's worth filtering some of that low end, even if you lose some of it when the compression comes up, it adds it again.

(17:21):

So instead of getting just the tick because you cut not too much, but the compression raises up the sustained and then you get them balanced. Well that's why normal kicks not sampled kicks. When you compress them up, they feel more natural because originally they didn't have too much size, but the sample kicks have a lot of size to them because they're all compressed already. If it makes sense what I said. So that's kind of what I felt basically I didn't have a problem with the mix. I felt that he was going for something and to me it's not a bad mix. Maybe it's just how you guys judge it is because you guys are more mixing engineers, so you judge it as a mix. I judge it more as a big picture to me how it appeals to the audience. I thought the master just lost some of the essence of it and lost the energy. It was loud, but it wasn't the loudness that gives the energy. It was too tamed lost. That makes sense.

Speaker 2 (18:32):

Yeah, there's many different ways to get loudness and if you're not doing it right, it just doesn't come across, doesn't convey the energy like you said. I think we all felt that when we listened to it as well. So that's definitely probably the main problem and also the low end just being pretty much too wild. I feel.

Speaker 4 (18:54):

Also another thing, and I think this happens a lot, it becomes synthetic. There's a point where you start feeling that the song is synthetic because of the way it's being leveled up. So instead of you feeling there's depth to it, it becomes flat.

Speaker 2 (19:10):

Yeah, so then there's no excitement. Like you said earlier,

Speaker 3 (19:14):

I find that that's the number one killer of amateur mastering efforts is well either that or the flubby low end, but really not knowing how to get things loud and flattening them completely, like you were saying, I feel like that's the number one thing I hear when listening to amateur masters is just, they're loud, but man, they're just like a flat line. So yeah, I feel you. I agree with that completely.

Speaker 4 (19:48):

If I may add to what you said, there's also a point where the loudness just hits the ears. I think it's very hard to find the balance where you can actually listen to the song over and over and if you find the sweet spot where you can make it louder and listen, but for long duration of time, then you got it nailed. I think that's probably the hardest thing to do is to master it loud enough to be acceptable by the artist, but at the same time be exciting and not fatiguing.

Speaker 3 (20:24):

Yeah, I find that actually a lot of metal records are very fatiguing and tough to listen to over more than 10 minutes long

Speaker 4 (20:35):

Except the doth album I mastered, right? Because it's not loud. That one's the worst

Speaker 3 (20:42):

Man. We got so much shit for that. Just to give you guys a little background, this doth record was done when I was in an all natural recording, no slamming anything phase, and so I wanted the master to retain all dynamics and to not clip at all and be as old school as possible. And I mean it sounds great, but we got so much shit for it because it was quiet. I learned my lesson hard with that one. So yeah,

Speaker 4 (21:15):

By the way, I got a lot of good stuff from that, just so you know.

Speaker 3 (21:20):

That's great.

Speaker 4 (21:22):

I got emails from ars and a lot of people saying how they love that album.

Speaker 3 (21:26):

Well, I'm glad to hear that. That's great. I got nothing but shit for it.

Speaker 4 (21:31):

You can't please them all right.

Speaker 3 (21:33):

Yeah, true. What

Speaker 4 (21:34):

An amazing story.

Speaker 3 (21:35):

True. I'm glad you got good stuff for it though. So are we good with this song? Should we move on to the next one?

Speaker 2 (21:42):

Yeah, let's go to the next one.

Speaker 3 (21:44):

Yeah. Okay, so I'm probably going to butcher the pronunciation here, but this is by our subscriber Ja Beno. I think that's how you pronounce your name. I'm sorry dude, if I got it wrong, if just kill me. The song is called Small Medium at Large and here it is

Speaker 6 (22:35):

And told you I and told you.

Speaker 2 (23:29):

Sweet. That song I really actually like the production on. I think the production and the mix is pretty good. There might be a few mixing issues, and this is one of the things I wanted to see if Maor agreed with or not because I couldn't tell if it was mastering or mixing quite because you can take a mix and you can put it through mastering and certain things will jump out that you didn't expect. Sometimes the snare will disappear or the bass becomes too loud or the vocals get swallowed. So one of the things I felt about this song is that the bass is just taking over everything, especially in the master. Does anyone else agree

Speaker 5 (24:11):

With me? Oh yeah,

Speaker 2 (24:12):

Totally. So what do you think? Is that a mixing thing or a mastering thing?

Speaker 4 (24:15):

Well, I think what you are addressing about the bass is true. It's not, first of all, it's noticeable in the mix. The balance of the base is a bit higher, which is not a big problem in most cases. The only problem here is that in the mix you can have it, but when you master it, you got to go the opposite way, otherwise it will boom it up. And that's what happened in the mastering. The base became even more bigger than expected probably, and it's actually controlling the compressor and the limiter so you can hear clamping, so you can hear it ducking it in certain areas. Plus because it's going up, it's kind of covering on the music. That usually happens when you have certain rooms that cancel certain low frequencies and then when you want to crank up the volume and still get the low end, you find yourself either boosting or compressing more and that low end just comes up. So it lost a lot of the tightness that it had in the mix, not that the mix was tight as much as it just even lost even more tightness.

Speaker 2 (25:33):

The other thing I felt about it was overall it just kind of felt too dark. Yes,

Speaker 4 (25:38):

Thank you.

Speaker 2 (25:39):

Yeah, EQ wise, even for this style of music, which I understand could be enjoyed a little bit darker frequency spectrum type thing. Even for that, taking that into consideration, it did feel like it was too dark for me. Do you guys Yeah, absolutely. I You guys share that with me as well?

Speaker 5 (26:01):

Yeah, it felt like, I mean there's a lot of beauty up in the air frequencies and it's not like it needs a ton of it, but I felt like to me there felt like there was a blanket over the mix. The mid range wasn't right and then when I heard it in mastering, I feel like that issue still kind of existed. And again, it might be because of a lack of trouble, it might just be that there's some weird mid-range ringing or something like that. I'd have to listen to it again, but I just felt like there was a little bit of a blanket and it just needed that nice little bit of lift to bring it to life, which again would've also counteracted some of the base issues hypothetically. So that was a big thing for me.

Speaker 2 (26:39):

And it also, I think going along with that is it felt mono and I'm curious, what would you do with this? Say this song was in your inbox right now and this is something you had to work on today. How would you make this feel a little bit more like it had more life and it was a little bit more wide? I guess

Speaker 4 (27:05):

The way I would approach it is it's the Loomis that make the problem here for me because the base we know already of the base issue and that's something I would tweak, but the Loomis are what makes it muddy. I didn't have a problem with the high end as it is. It's just that it's the low mids that we're covering a lot and

Speaker 6 (27:27):

That's

Speaker 4 (27:28):

Where I would approach it. I think also the compressor is triggered a lot by the low end and maybe if you start with the low end and then go to the low mids, then it would immediately open and part of that width that Joe you're talking about has to do with the high base area, which is around 180 hertz

Speaker 2 (27:54):

That's

Speaker 4 (27:55):

Clogging that what you felt that the width is missing, clogging it.

Speaker 2 (28:00):

So if that frequency range or that instrument was somehow either lowered in volume, had a different balance or maybe just eqd a little bit differently, we would start to reveal more of the high-end energy and the high-end frequencies of the mix is what you're saying?

Speaker 4 (28:20):

Yeah, I would approach it. This is a case where I would call the mixing engineer and hope he's a nice guy to talk to. Don't call us. No, no, of course I wouldn't even bother. But that's where I would call the mixing engineer and say, Hey, could you maybe fix that bass guitar, maybe cut some lows on it and some high bass because it's really that bass guitar which is taking all that space, which all of you has noticed as well that's kind of clogging the mix. I can fix it in a mastering situation, but it's not really a fixing, it's more of like a remedy but not really doing what will be best if it was tweaked on the bass guitar itself, A whole new mix come to life.

Speaker 3 (29:10):

Totally. So just out of curiosity, how often do you find yourself having to call mix engineers to get them to tweak the mix so that you can do your job properly?

Speaker 4 (29:22):

It depends on them. I've worked with them big, big names that were very open to changes and I've worked with people who were not, it really depends on the person of, I don't want to say a huge amount. There's also mixers that supply the mix great as is, but there's been more than quite a few. There's a lot of people who are open to mixed critiques and a lot of times it's just a few small things and it changes the whole picture. Then the mix opens up. It could be symbols, it could be bass, could be, usually it's kind of the extremist instruments that make the problems.

Speaker 2 (30:09):

Would you say that it's one out of every 10 or maybe nine out of 10? No,

Speaker 4 (30:16):

No, no. It won't be nine out of 10. No, no, no, not that. But I would say maybe half or less than half would be situational like that. And sometimes it's even a small thing like, hey, could you print it two db lower so the compression is not that glued or can you just DS symbols or the vocal or maybe adjust the bass guitar. It's usually those kind of things. It's not really going in making big changes.

Speaker 3 (30:50):

Have you ever had to do that, suggest a complete remix or really big changes?

Speaker 4 (30:58):

Yeah, yeah. There were situations and I'm happy that the people who I was working with, they didn't have any ego if to say they were open to it and in the end of the day they called me later on and said, wow, man, it's like not only a mix sounds better now, but the mastering even took it to a place they never thought. I mean that happened, but it's really about communicating and if the other side is willing to do so and they're trusting that you want for their best,

Speaker 3 (31:37):

Well it's kind of hard to get a great sounding master without a mix that is able to be mastered greatly. I think it makes sense that you have to call people sometimes.

Speaker 4 (31:49):

Yeah, sometimes the change is 5%, sometimes the change is 40% in the mastering, but that 5% is a hundred percent for the listener. He doesn't know what was before

Speaker 3 (32:04):

And every once in a while I'm assuming you just get stuff that sounds perfect the way it is and you just have to do your job and that's it.

Speaker 4 (32:12):

If it comes in perfect, well or almost perfect, then I'll do just minor adjustments. So it will be sounding consistent on all playback systems and maybe just a bit color if they want coloration, like a vibe on it, but if it's needed. But sometimes that's just a small icing on the cake and that's it sometimes.

Speaker 3 (32:40):

Okay, so in a situation like this you would contact the mixer and ask them to make some changes?

Speaker 4 (32:47):

I would give them the option. Either I make the changes and then it's going to kind of affect other instruments or say if you're willing to adjust the base and clean up the low end in the base, also compressing the base a bit more after cleanup. I think that that would make a big change. And also by the way, I did notice that in the master the snare was more balanced than in the mix. It was more glue. So I assume that if that bass guitar is tweaked white, then the mastering would get it really good.

Speaker 3 (33:24):

So lemme just ask you a question now that we're on the topic of having to talk to mixers and get them to make changes. I guess what would be perfect for you for a submission? If I was doing a mix and sending it to you to master, or if anybody was doing a mix sending to you to master, what kind of options would you like just delivered to you? Do you like it when you get drums up and drums down, vocals up, vocals down? Do you like to get all those different versions? I guess I'm wondering what kind of file delivery and what kind of options would make you the happiest as a mastering engineer? Well

Speaker 4 (34:11):

I think to save time for the mixer, he doesn't need to do ups and downs versions. I would only say maybe do a vocal up vocal dime just in case. What I would do is master it and then we see if something is missing then we go and approach that. Let's say the snare goes down a bit, then we do a snare up, but to send up down, up, down of everything, it probably will be a waste of time for the mixer and just to go over all of them and figure out what's best would also be kind of too much. And then you probably would lose objectivity. I would just say work within what's there and then address the issues. In most cases there's three things that might be lost that people like to fix would be either vocal up or vocal down, snare up or down or kick up and down. The more complex ones are base up, base down, but I would start first maybe just give me a normal version and maybe a vocal up if the vocals are a bit kind of like on the fence. That makes sense.

Speaker 2 (35:26):

Yeah, I usually don't request that many versions, but if I get multiple versions I'll listen to all of them and I'll pick the one that I like the most and I'll start working with that. And then I'll throw in the other ones just to compare without changing my chain or anything just to see how it changes. And oftentimes the first one that I picked is the one that I like, but that's also how all the mastering settings were decided on that track. So it makes most sense that it is the one that ends up winning, but you always check and you always compare.

Speaker 4 (36:04):

I get sometimes two versions of the same mix with a different processing. So sometimes somebody buys a bus compressor or an EQ or summing box or something like that and they mix through it, but they're not sure if that's what will sound best. So they'll print two versions and then I'll listen to them and I'll see which one has more options to work with. Sometimes the coloration is nice but it takes off something and sometimes the clearer one is better to work with. So I'll listen to both and see it's not a lot of people today buy two bus compressors and they want to run it through it and see how it sounds and I'll just choose between the two what I think is better to use. I also can compress it without board gear. That's what I do as well. So could choose what's better.

Speaker 2 (37:09):

Makes sense. Cool. So our last song we have is a rap song, which is actually pretty cool. The artist is House of Goon and the song is Howitzer.

Speaker 3 (37:20):

Yeah and it's by our subscriber Mr Joshua Hass.

Speaker 7 (37:27):

Dollar signs count, not a dollar signs. Oh my god. Think about to lose my mind. Never took find just sir, you can't sign. Maybe you be new. Way to keep up on my daily grind. Most track saying Rocky Rose, I ever see ice cream. I said ice cream. Bet you wish you would've picked Ave Bottle when I had the bottle. Scared you. Are you the talk still model? Thought about a Millie bro. Lil Wayne. Great shout. Lets make video that'll make a little really though Democratic. Everybody get a vote. Let's go Moses, let's

Speaker 8 (37:58):

Smoke. Howard. Howard we're one. Artillery words for power. Words from power cowards and cowards. Americas not my way to the dream Tower

Speaker 7 (38:09):

Count dollar signs counts, dollar signs. Oh my God. Think about to lose my mind. Never too confined, just sir, you can't sign. Maybe you be new. Way to keep up on my daily grind, most track and rocky rose I ever see ice cream. I said ice cream. Bet you wish you would've been Jeep. I said bottle when I models thought about a bro Lil Wayne. Silly though. Great. Shout out. Let's make a video. Anything that'll make a little dough really democratic. Everybody a vote. Let's go Moses

Speaker 8 (38:43):

One artillery words for power. Power cowards and cowards. America's not my way to the dream tower.

Speaker 2 (38:50):

The first thing that I get from this master is the treble is really oddly adjusted. It's not smooth. There's too much and it's kind of pointy. I don't know. What do you guys think?

Speaker 5 (39:07):

Two to 4K. Oh my god. Killing my ears.

Speaker 3 (39:09):

Yeah, for sure. It's a little bit on the painful side and I'm not hearing that awesome shaped, perfectly controlled sub that I like to hear when I listen to this style of music. I'm not hearing my car stereo just like thumping and exploding in a good way. So I feel like there's something wrong with the low end as well.

Speaker 5 (39:36):

I will say though, to add to that, that when I listened to the original mix, I felt like the mix was a little bit flat sounding and the master I feel definitely made it better in terms of the bottom end and the top end. But there's just that little bit of that low end issue that I feel like didn't translate quite right and that top end, especially in the vocal, to me the vocal is really, really pointy and really harsh and probably it may even need some mixed tweaks on it, but there's just something that really makes me squinch my ears together, for lack of a better word. Just make one up. It's really painful. I am very sensitive to that range and it just felt like when I would listen to it, I'd really lose my, it would just hurt.

Speaker 2 (40:21):

What are your thoughts Mayo?

Speaker 4 (40:23):

The first thing I noticed was the low end. I felt like instead of feeling that warmth sub, it felt like something was modulating it, like going. And I think that has to do with how the limiter was responding to it. So I would put a low pass filter on it and this is something I would do either if we can do in the mix or in the mastering because in this case you can also do this in the mastering and improve it because a lot of things are way up and not taking that space. So first of all, around 40 hertz would be a good place to start cleaning up there on the subs. I thought it kind of modulated a lot of areas. So instead of have a base development that's nice and round, just like I think Al mentioned in the car, so yeah, I understand what you mean mean instead of making this pillow in the car of low end, it kind of rumbles a bit too much. Maybe it's a bit, even if it's kind of has a roar to it, it's a bit aggressive instead of soft

(41:50):

Here it didn't do that, but I know what you mean that it has a resonance instead of being soft, it kind of distorts a bit. So I think once you tweak that low end there immediately the song would be softer on the ear. It may be even less harsh because the low end would kind of wrap the high end as well. I think that's the first thing that came to mind for me. I understand what you guys say about the high end, but I also know that stylistically, every time I hear these kind of songs, they like to have that high end. It's like the edges, a low end and high end, especially for clubs and that it's very common that the high end will be kind of like that as well. So I just think fixing that low end will make it sound easier on the air and nicer, but you can tame the high end a bit if you want around those ranges that Joe, I think mentioned can soften a devi too.

Speaker 2 (43:12):

How often do you find yourself mastering rap and hip hop and stuff like that?

Speaker 4 (43:19):

I do that a lot. I get stuff from hip hop to metal to rock to singer songwriter, acoustic industrial, EDM, jazz blues I've done from Walter Trott and Eric Gales to ura to Faith Nomar to yes to William Shatner, to Dakin to Halford to

Speaker 3 (43:46):

Dawkin.

Speaker 4 (43:46):

Yeah. I mean my gamut is really, I do a lot of r and b and pop and death metal.

Speaker 5 (43:55):

You did that star set record, right?

Speaker 4 (43:57):

Yes, I did. Star set. Yeah,

Speaker 5 (43:59):

I like that single. It's really, really good song. I mean it was a monster success, but I dig the mix and I think it smells really good.

Speaker 3 (44:07):

Let's talk about William Shatner for a second. I didn't know

Speaker 4 (44:11):

It was a prog Raquel.

Speaker 3 (44:13):

Was it a spoken word or was it him doing songs?

Speaker 4 (44:15):

There's a Steve I plays on it and Aldi Meola What? And Dave Cause on Saxophone and actually George Duke Rest in Peace also was on that record. There was a bunch of Robbie Crager from the Doors played on it. Basically it's a prog rock album with a full band and holy shit. And there's songs singing by Billy Sherwood and William Shatner is telling a story on it. So basically the songs have music and melody and William Shatner is giving his story on each song. So it's like he's talking or doing a spoken word and then Billy Sherwood is singing choruses on it and or pre-course or different melodies.

Speaker 3 (45:10):

That sounds like an amazing record to work on.

Speaker 4 (45:13):

It was very interesting because you have to keep in mind that the spoken word has to be in the front and you still have music surrounding it and singing. So it was very interesting. And of course the players there, these are top guy Steve I, Aldi, bola.

Speaker 3 (45:36):

Did you get to interact with William Shatner at all?

Speaker 4 (45:38):

I got to meet him after I did the album.

Speaker 3 (45:40):

Sweet. And

Speaker 4 (45:41):

He liked it.

Speaker 3 (45:42):

That's great. Yeah, that's really awesome. Sorry I just fanboyed out for a second, but I think William Shatner's awesome. Well look, it's not every day that you get to talk to somebody about working on a William Shatner record. Yeah, absolutely. And it was back to this song, so about the flatness in the mix. So same question I asked you on the last song in this case, would you call up the mixing engineer and ask him to fix some stuff or is this something where you feel like you could just master it and it would be fine?

Speaker 4 (46:20):

I think that first of all, I would try this before calling him because when I listened to the mix, it was a certain area that had that which was just the low end. It's not like the song before where the low end was working, the mo mids and the mimes, this is really a lot of it is really, really low. So I think first of all, I would try doing it myself, find the area that works best and softening it. And if I would feel that I got to a point where it's nice but could be better, then I might call the mixer and say, could you put a low pass around 40 on the subs and maybe lower a bit the volume of it, few dbs. So it's not above the music, it's in the range of the music, just a bit more that way. It also would be softer. I think what bothers AAL is that it's not only loud, but it's controlling the music.

Speaker 3 (47:29):

Yeah, absolutely. It swallows

Speaker 4 (47:32):

It. Yeah. And with the compression in the mastering, it's actually modulating it. So it's not only swallows, but it's actually controlling it. Certain sections come up and certain come down so you can hear that it's not as stable because of that.

Speaker 3 (47:49):

Am I the only one here who thought the vocals? I mean I realize vocals need to be loud in this, but am I the only one who thought that they were just a little painfully too loud? Or is that an EQ thing? They

Speaker 2 (48:02):

Were a little bit too loud, but I think the EQ thing definitely made it EQ is probably the reason why you feel that way because how pointy it is.

(48:11):

It's almost like someone went in with a 31 band, no Q control EQ and just took 4K and eight K and just pushed those two sliders all the way to the top. And it just sounds like it's almost like the EQ itself too was like a cheap eq, but there's so many moving parts in this that you don't know if it was the mic and then the crappiness of the mic being accentuated by the mastering or was it the mix? Maybe the, but I feel like it was the mastering because that's where you really notice the stuff becoming overly pointy and kind of overly, it's like if you put too much sugar on a cookie or too much salt on a dish, that's kind of how it felt to me.

Speaker 4 (49:03):

Stomach. I thought it was intentional. I thought they wanted kind of not a telephone effect, but when I heard it I felt that, okay, maybe that's what they wanted. The vocals to be very confined in a small area in that range were those frequencies and maybe some one K they could have sounded fuller if the EQ was different. That's true. Sometimes in those cases where I get a project like that, it's good to communicate and just figure out if that was intentional or not. Because the mastering will emphasize that and it did. That's why you guys are talking about it. It came up even more in the mastering. So I think in those cases you do it and you send it and if they feel something is wrong, you talk with them and say, was that intentional that the vocals would be limited in a certain frequency range, like a certain bandwidth or you want 'em to be fuller. And if you do want to have them fuller, then you need to cue them differently and maybe just do what Joe likes to do the most. And it's,

Speaker 5 (50:17):

You read my Facebook, huh?

Speaker 4 (50:20):

No, no, I think you told me that once.

Speaker 5 (50:22):

There's a longstanding joke that I'm just like, fuck mids. I hate mids. I don't really hate them. I like it when the mid range is correct, but it's just funny and I say it so much with all of my clients that it's just become the joke that's thrown out of control and I just believe in embracing things like that. So fuck 'em. Cut 'em out.

Speaker 2 (50:44):

Yeah, the smiley face. It's the smiley face eq.

Speaker 4 (50:47):

You know how I call people who do scoop the happy face.

Speaker 5 (50:54):

Thanks for the compliment. I feel great today

Speaker 4 (50:58):

When we use the 31 bands or when we would set PA systems and we want to have everything sounded really nice, we would make the Happy Face no mids

Speaker 5 (51:10):

Classic Death metal EQ on guitars.

Speaker 4 (51:12):

Yeah, it works on everything.

Speaker 2 (51:15):

It does actually. We've been joking around about making a plugin that does something like that, but we're

Speaker 5 (51:20):

Doing it.

Speaker 2 (51:22):

I want to thank you for joining us and helping us critique these masters. And for anyone who might be listening to this episode as the first critique episode, just want you to know that if you are sticking around with us from month to month, we are critiquing mixes and masters. Generally we do the mixing and we could end up critiquing your mix. So if you're subscribed, stick around for the next month and we'll do another round and potentially we can get you on the show, have you show us your best work and we'll help you out and try to improve your ability to mix or master better. So once again, any final words from anyone?

Speaker 3 (52:06):

I just want to thank Maur for coming on and thank all our subscribers for submitting songs for us to have some fun with. Yeah,

Speaker 5 (52:14):

Absolutely. Thanks Maur. It's been awesome and interesting. It's always fun to see how different people approach the same problem. And that's one of the real rewards because we do this show every week and we get together and talk about this stuff and I'm always impressed by how much, just for me personally, I get out of it even though I'm a host, which is kind of weird and funny, but it's just really cool to see how people attack different problems and I thought you had great perspective, so thank you for bringing that here today. You're

Speaker 2 (52:43):

Welcome. Hey, and if people want to reach you online, do you have a website or anything where people can check out more about you and about what you do? Yeah,

Speaker 4 (52:51):

It's www M-A-O-R-A-P-P-E-L-B-A-U m.com or applebaum.com. Or they can email me M-A-P-P-E-L-B-A-U [email protected]. And there's quite a few things online. Sometimes there's videos or websites or other pieces of information. I want to say thank you for you guys for having me here. It was a good starting for my day to talk tech with cool people with a good sense of humor.

Speaker 3 (53:31):

Great, man. Thank you.

Speaker 4 (53:32):

You're welcome.

Speaker 3 (53:33):

All right, so have a great day and have fun mastering some stuff.

Speaker 4 (53:37):

Thank you. And wishing everybody a good week and put your passion into what you're doing and it will be better and better each time. There it is. Right on The

Speaker 1 (53:47):

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