As the need for emailable or downloadable audio files continues to grow, musicians and recording engineers are faced with the contrast of producing high resolution digital audio recordings, but needing to also have high-quality smaller-meg files. These smaller files are also necessary as more and more collaboration occurs, with musicians and recording engineers needing to send their mixes across the country or around the world for review and approvals.
This issue, we checked in with top engineers Rich Tozzoli, Brian Scheuble, and Jay Frigoletto to learn how they utilize the Internet in their work to share mixes and ensure their work doesn’t suffer too much when being sent over the Internet for approvals.
Rich Tozzoli
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Rich Tozzoli between mixes at his home studio.
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Engineer/producer Rich Tozzoli took a break from mixing tracks for an upcoming 5.1 Blu-Ray HD project of his own ambient/groove music to share his "recipe" for cooking up a lossy, or compressed digital audio file, such as an MP3.
"A lot of people think that converting a high resolution mix into an MP3 is going to sound nasty, but it can work if you take the time to tweak it right. All you have to do is listen to the great sound of mixes by guys like Bob Clearmountain or records mastered by Bob Ludwig and you realize that you can have a kicking MP3 mix. Just accept it for what it is."
Rich developed his formula for delivering a good-sounding MP3 by a process of trial and error. Currently, it utilizes a three-step signal processing chain that starts by routing the stereo mix through his Manley Massive Passive analog equalizer. He then comes back into his computer and into the Sony Oxford limiter. After that, he often sends the mix into the TC Electronic MD 3 multi-band processor.
Rich emphasizes that the processing he applies at each stage is minimal. "I kick up the gain a dB or so and add a touch of EQ with the Manley, then I’ll do a little bit of limiting with the Sony, and finally add a touch of dynamic compression with the TC. Each tool has its own specialty. I want the mix to be a little hotter before I export it out and into BIAS Peak editing program.
"I like Peak for creating a dithered MP3 file, as their encoder sounds great. I’ll also trim the track in Peak and get it ready for export as an MP3 or an M4a (otherwise known as Advanced Audio Coding or AAC) file if they use Macs. If I feel I need to go back and make a few adjustments to levels or EQ, I can easily jump back to the signal processing chain and fine tune the mix, then just drop it back into Peak. When I’m happy with the final, then I’ll save it as an MP3 or M4a and send it on its way."
Rich was also enthusiastic about a utility program from Audio Ease called Snapper that helps him manage audio on the desktop. "The first day I got Snapper, which is available for a 100-day free trail online, I must have used it 15 times. Just point at a file in the finder and it plays it automatically, instantly loading up the waveform. It recognizes more than fifty different digital file types from MP3 to 5.1 high res files.
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Sonnox Oxford Limiter main screen.
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"I use a lot of samples in my work, so Snapper immediately lets me know what I’m dealing with. It also lets me select a file, like a final mix, and pack it up as an MP3 or M4a into an email – with a single click. It uses the LAME MP3 encoder, which has a bad name but good sound." He’s also been experimenting with MP3 surround, using Fraunhofer’s MP3 surround encoder. "Considering how small it makes the file, it can sound pretty good."
Rich always prepares a processed mix for use by his clients on the web, TV, and other DIY applications following the guidelines noted above. "I also give them the unprocessed high resolution mix, which most of my clients take to a mastering house and use for CD or Blu-Ray or other high definition delivery formats."
Rich makes a final point that, "You must be able to accurately hear what you are doing to levels and EQ in your room. If you don’t have sonic accuracy, you can actually make your mixes sound worse when you tweak them."
Brian Scheuble
Ironically, Brian Scheuble had spent most of the week doing mixes for clients that could never come to his home mixing studio. For Brian, the Internet is clearly making a big difference in his ability to work with clients near and far. "I’ve been mixing tracks for a number of clients who simply sent me the files and asked me to mix their songs. I probably will never meet them. Working virtually is definitely a growing trend for me."
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Brian Scheuble pictured in the studio.
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When asked about sending out reference mixes via the Internet, Brian started out using the ubiquitous Apple iTunes software. "Originally, I was simply using iTunes to export my mixes and email them to clients, but a lot of people started saying that they felt that it was coloring the mixes a bit, so I switched over to Roxio’s Toast, which I have been very happy with. [Editor’s Note: Toast 8 also provides support for burning Blu-Ray discs of up to 50 GB.] Most of the time, I’ll select AAC file format at 320 kbs for the file. It’s important to find out what type of connection the listener has access to. For my clients with high bandwidth connections, they can actually take a 16-bit, 44.1 stereo file."
Brian also mentioned that he will often provide an uncompressed high resolution version of his mixes by posting it to a file transfer protocol (FTP) site for his clients to download. "I’ve been using a couple of free FTP services, YouSendIt.com and DropSend.com. It takes about an hour’s time before the file is uploaded for them to go and get. I’ll usually upload the file as a background task, while I move on to start mixing the next tune. Once it’s loaded, the client is notified by email of its availability and I get an email notice when they have successfully downloaded their mix."
When asked about clients transferring their multi-channel session files to him via the Internet, Brian says that "Some clients send me the files as attachments if they are less than 2 GB in size. For larger files, they just rip them to a DVD-R and overnight them to me."
Jay Frigoletto
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Jay Frigoletto in the control room at Master Suite.
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Our last expert is mastering engineer Jay Frigoletto, who lives and works about one hour west of Boston in Brookline, NH. His Master Suite studio is part of a 100-acre arts compound with DVD production, recording, and mastering studios located on a scenic hilltop overlooking hiking trails and forests. It’s also a top mastering destination for clients from around the US. Prior to establishing Master Suite, Jay worked for a number of years in LA and Atlanta, and as a result, has a good number of clients that continue to work with him today from those cities. As a result, he’ll often be working with these clients remotely, using the Internet as the primary means of sharing his work.
"There are lots of possibilities to introduce artifacts or problems into a compressed digital audio signal," Jay said. "And as most studios or recording musicians are working at 88.2 or 96K sampling rates, at least for temporary files, reducing the file size to send over the Internet can have an adverse effect."
Jay suggests you take a good look at what your sample rate converters are doing to your audio signal. "All converters are not created equal. There’s a very interesting web site (www.src.infinitewave.ca) that has a number of comparisons online of various sample rate converters. You can see the ‘before and after’ using different types of signal sources. After looking at the results of these tests, and depending on what type of investment one can afford, this is a great resource.
On the high end of sample rate converters, the Weiss Saracon software offers outstanding performance. A good mid-priced solution is Izotope’s RX bundle, a set of audio restoration tools that puts more power in the converter, allowing you to fine-tune the slope of the converter’s filters, which can be handy for certain types of files. The most affordable solution would be the Voxengo r8brain PRO package, which offers very good performance at a modest cost. They also have a lite and free version of that same software." [Editor’s Note: A sampling of prices for all the products mentioned in this article may be found below.]
After you try to find the converter that will give you the best performance, you then have to decide what type of file format you will use to encode and send the file. MP3 and AAC are the two most common file types people can play back. I prefer to sample at the highest rate possible when it comes to audio codecs. I try to never go below 256 kbs for MP3 files. With AAC, you can get away with 192 kbs."
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Weiss Saracon is one of the top software sample rate converters on the market according to Jay.
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Another concern is level. "If you have a very, very loud mix, once it’s MP3-encoded, you may have some filter overs, and that’s why someone might hear some clipping when they evaluate the mix. Lots of high frequencies can also be a torture test for filters and codecs. If you have a lot of super loud, bright guitars, that can be tough to encode. If you have overs, people will be concentrating on the artifacts and not on the music. I make a point to ask if there’s any way that the client can download AIF or WAV files at high resolution, even if we can only send them a verse and a chorus at full resolution. I’m also using FTP servers more these days. Clients can also upload files to me via FTP sites.
"About half of my work is done virtually with clients all over the world, so whether they have a Mac or PC, I can’t afford for them to have any problems listening to my work. They have to be able to open the file and hit play with no problems. So it’s important to speak with your clients and see what file formats they can play back before you send them mixes. If my client has Roxio software, I can send them a reference using [Roxio’s] JAM file format. If they are on a Mac, I’ll use the SIT instead of ZIP file compression software to insure that the Mac resource info does not get stripped by Internet servers, which would render the files unreadable by the Roxio software. Once they download the file, they can uncompress it and simply burn their own ref and listen to what I’m hearing. More and more the Internet is helping us to share our work even at higher resolutions."
It’s clear that utilizing the Internet for collaboration, mix approvals, and even delivery of high resolution masters is on the upswing. With the advice of our experts, you should be able to expand the possibilities that you and your clients can enjoy. |
