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Lesson Info

2:30 pm - Metadata and Key Points of Mastering

Metadata when you're not talking like a nerd is information that is tagged and stays with your finished trucks ensures your song stays in place the proper order retains your artist info and all that stuff that makes you look really smart and cool. Um there's two companies that deal with meta data cd d b, which is the cd database which has antiquated as it sounds, is still really important and then music brains, which is another metadata and kind of music door company that make this work so they get it so I tuned cd players all recognize your tracks, so the way you get your stuff to go to them is one um would you upload your waves that mp three's too, to core cd, baby reverb nation or whoever you liketo aggregate to destro kid it's another one of my do favorites you have to enter all this stuff it so thankfully would you turn that it it'll go toe all your favorite sites like that? If you're putting your music on top spin, they have the best metadata editor I've ever used, and so you can...

literally go in their tag it and then export and re downloaded yourself in all your metadata is so pretty as your album covered everything and you feel like you're the coolest person on earth same thing with band camp as well if you want your cd to work so the biggest thing people always call me and say is they I just got my master I put it in itunes, my stuff doesn't show up you actually have to submit your cd d b database in phone just itunes after you press a cd, so when you're the first person to get your cd, you have to pop it in and then literally go report this to cbgb it reads your cd in the track times and then it says what it thinks it is, as you've probably noticed, if you've ever put a cd and itunes sometimes he thinks is the rake iglesias record when you're really listening to crock topsy, which could be pretty confusing, so you choose the right one if somebody has the exact same song lynxes you that's ah, you know it's going to ask you if which what it is you have to submit that yourself, you could do it in itunes, right under the advanced tab? I think they fortunately, itunes changes this every version, so it depends on which version of itunes you have, but you could find a submit to see ddb thing when you pop your cds so that's better data if you don't use metadata don't want to do this stuff, I suggest using top spinner bandcamp downloading that using that as what you send out for pro moe's is the download you get from those companies because they are such rich metadata it's really, really good so here's another fun fact wave files do not maintain artist and album information they every time you pop it into a different itunes it's not going to say what you have it's itunes doesn't read it properly if you go into your own itunes and get it, it'll tell you your song names that you just put it in the computer, but every time you go in different itunes it's not going to remember it and that's because waves weren't written with future proofed ideas that we're going to be using itunes because waves were written before itunes existed. We've never made a new protocol because we're too far mp three's for all their horrible sound can retain metadata. So, um the other thing about this is thies src codes like you talking about src codes allow everything from internet radio your licensing cos tio fancy bmws with seedy readouts to know what songs you're playing. You can get these codes simply by uploading to any of those cos I just talked about districted reverb nation to encore um cd baby etcetera it's super super easy and you want to do this because you want to have your publishing company able to collect royalties for you way better they help with all sorts of things it's not something you want to get one take a screenshot of your src codes when you upload them so you can put him in with your publishing information and make your publishers life easy to get you money just so you know, even like a ford focus has the cd even a ford focus yeah, pretty you think this is what you don't know when you don't drive you fancied new yorkers are so out of touch with the real world that's what sarah palin told me okay, moving right along with them. Yeah. Okay, so this this year is, uh a program called mp three tag, which obviously you need a pc to do, which you know isn't really friendly when you look at this desk on but there's tons of things like I said, I prefer bandcamp topspin are so good to do this stuff with take the five minutes to do this your music last forever and especially if you get to be old geezers like finn and I you know you want to go back and listen to your records ten years and see that they were all properly tagged, you'll be so happy when you're old too going backto listen toe horrible new york hardcore records from the nineties in your equivalent of that today um so the key takeaways from the session are it is necessary to give care and concern to song spacings and transitions it helps a record full better um you want to make sure to bounce around your record? Make sure mixes are consistent volume levels frequencies everything's great and take the time to enter your metadata you have any questions? So just to clarify so the kevin spencer has another question I might be jumping ahead here but if I'm mastering myself how doe I ad I es rc codes into songs I've seen mastering guys do it but they had some mastering specific so well you can do it with the mastering specific dog or you could just go to their website if you use that google on dh you khun by an entry into their portal that will allow you to enter it what I would suggest instead of wasting your money on that is just save your money by using like I said, whoever you're going to do your digital aggregation through and get it for free src codes and you pc codes are basically the free bonus that all these companies give you forgiving knew their business when they're doing the same services everybody else great you guys have any questions about the matter data sequence again without no yes we do uh so as first sequencing goes ah when when tempos air very very different I know that you you said that giving a couple seconds like kind of how it quinn's area yeah the ginger to the sushi like that that's the best metaphor yeah like cleanse the palate if you will do you have any other recommendations for other things like that? Because that's something that I've always struggled with especially what there's a lot of tempo changes between tracks you know who I think did this really well is one of those early dead mouse records he was kind of a little bit more all over the place was tempos and he just threw that big river blast that you'd let just say you look pretty that reverb is and then you let it die then you'd be ready for the next one I think a really good river blast on that last kick drum or symbol can often be a great way to do with the little white white noise fade out then the course of other things like you know it's also like you know big thing today these days to everybody does the tempo ramp up of the buildup you know the will able to trick him speed up the tempo on a kick drum and then all of a sudden you're in a new one it's a great trick we have anything else I think we can go ahead and keep going and then we'll do it a q and a before we wrap does that sound good? That sounds great cool um so the next thing we have is what's coming up tomorrow so tomorrow we're going to get into all the really, really fun stuff we're going to dissect masters that I have here, we're going to master ah, couple tracks from you guys that are submitted, we're also going to go through the gear so as you can see, here we're goingto what you should buy for audio interfaces, monitors, headphones, monitor switches and all sorts of plug ins were going to go through what's cheap and still good and you could still get a great result. The one thing we really want in force during this course is that so money these tools are so cheap it could be had for so little money and you could do there's people who were using these all over the radio, they just know how to use them. We're gonna show you how you get good at these and which ones are affordable and we'll still get you a result that's really passable? Um, everything we've picked out is all really good things and we also have analog equipments we have some really cool analog equipment that will be in tomorrow we'll show you how it relates to this stuff why it's modeled why do they do modeling of analog equipment, why some things aren't modelled like, you know, for example this is a great example is that there really is like, while we say and along in this tc files it's analog in the sense that it's real worlds not plugging there's no digital process really that does brick wall limiting multi band compression. There are one or two really analog multi band compressors, but a lot of this stuff is exclusively digital and that's fine. Um, yet again we'll get morninto what we did with ease with clipping tape saturation. Um, equalizers we got a great analog equalizer and tomorrow to go over how we use that plus, um what's in here, um we talked a little about sterile widening today, there's all sorts of fun stuff you could do when you can't get back to your mix our survey and you want a world where a kick it stare you wantto will wear a vocal overall will go all through how I do that sometimes and how you can use that to apply to your mix, your mixes or your masters and then we'll get into the really dorky stuff of dithering and all that fun stuff. I think like the biggest thing we saw at the beginning this is that we established the idea that mastering is not like just about the loudness wars, there's a lot of little things that you could do with it ed that you know, I think one of the biggest misconceptions is the brick wall winner is everything about loudness when there's a lot of subtle things you can do that you accumulate teo get ah master to be allowed a few different small processes and you're able tto gett a greater result and that you also isn't just dependent on frequencies and that it's also the harmonics your high end khun beam or rich and brighter nice sounding because of the way it distorts um we got in tow how you deal with regaining your objectivity you have to remember speakers, brakes, different volumes listen to tracks that are good comparisons with senior gold tracks are all great ways to get objectivity as well as talking to your other band members or the other people the project and asking if you're crazy or not um we talked about sequencing the sequences information it's really easy to go through a track see with the volumes are all consistent you wantto really spend some time on that not skip out on that too proper track spacings and then export do proper metadata really cool? Okay, I saw it personally that you did such a great job, you know, I've been like scared of this topic for so long I still have a lot to learn about it, but when you boiled it down to saying really it's just about frequencies in dynamics which are two things that if you can mix you understand what those things are guess actually and you know the ways that you tackle it for mastering are a little bit different but fundamentally it's the same thing it's frequencies in dynamics and I was like a wall that's a lot less scary than I thought it was this isn't gonna hurt it off well, I think there's another somebody said earlier calling it a dark car and there has been a big thing of that you know we have to remember there's a big cartel of people don't realize that yes this is simple and it's complicated it's well but it takes some practice to do but like but that's the same of chester of mixing two everything about recording and simple complicated there's a lot of money to be made you know the one the best things I ever heard while I told somebody I was writing a book on the music business's they say ah, you know the saying there's a lot of money to be made off more money to be made off music um appealing to the fears of musicians that there ever is being a musician and if you want to see that look at how much money the all these audio companies make and all these people who scare you into services that you think you need that you don't actually need need you know there's lots of great you're out there and some of us care we do use is really expensive you know those folks begins aren't cheap but there absolutely amazing but you also don't need those to do great work you know I see tons of great master's done on a wave sea for or the fab filter pack well again getting back to what we said earlier for anybody that may be missed the beginning of the day yes, the best option is having somebody like west west side you know, take advantage of all the amazing gear and experience they have to master music that is the best option and yes, having great gear is better than having okay gear yes, but you know not to put words in your mouth I think our point here today is that that's not the only option and what were you conduce something yourself that's pretty good. I think what we'll get into a lot tomorrow too is there's a big thing of that? Ten years ago there was so much horrible, horrible gear out there like you know, just and a d d converter like even the more expensive ada di converters in two thousand one like the top of the line did you design pro tools one sound so much worse that's so money those records were made on in two thousand won that an apogee duet at apogee de wet today since twenty times better than anything made in pro tools in two thousand one, like two or three, everything is cheaper and really high quality now, and I think records do sound really, you know, I'm not. One of the people of nostalgia is the past, I think there's, great sounding records of past agree sound records the future, but so many. These tools are so cheap, we're not sheep, but inexpensive and still great, and you can get a great result for very little money and that's. A lot of what we're going to re enforced tomorrow is that you are what I deem as tools that I see people doing great work with. I do great work with and arm, or than good enough to do excellent work.