AW: OT: favourite premastering effects chain

["Rainer Thelonius Balthasar Straschill" <rs@moinlabs.de>]

Hi Per, 

You said:

> B) Then I do a certain classic mastering treatment that looks 
> like this:
> 
> Stereo Mix clone 1 --> phase inverting
> Stereo Mix clone 2 --> stereo swapping
> Stereo Mix clone 3 --> mono
> 
> Stereo Mix clone 1 + Stereo Mix clone 2 --> merged into Sub mix 1   
> (carefully balancing levels
> The mono signal added to Sub mix 1 (carefully balancing levels)

Ok, just trying to understand (and also like Todd asked): why do you do
this? 
More specifically, let's say I take a source signal with a strong center
component (almost always true for bass, bassdrum etc.).

So, this signal is a mid signal, and shall be the only content of M.
Then we have a side signal S (the non-mono component), and that one relates
to L and R as follows:

L = M+S
R = M-S

Now for your mix clones, I will always postfix the channels with the number
of your clone, e.g. the left channel of stereo mix clone 1 is L1.

We get with the above equations:
L1 = -M-S
R1 = -M+S

L2 = M-S
R2 = M+S

L3 = M
R3 = M

So, for the submix (which will get index s), we get:

Ls = -M-S+M-S = -2S
Rs = -M+S+M+S = 2S

Now in the last stage, you mix that together with your Submix3, which gives
you as your final mix:

L = M+S
R = M-S

So, why do you do that? Is that a very complicated way of controlling the
M/S balance?

Then you said:

> Combined frequency and and stereo correlation meter and 
> goniometer (not affecting sound, only for reading out data), 
> EQ, multi band compressor (sometimes, not always), limiter, a 
> second combined frequency and and stereo correlation meter 
> and goniometer.

Is it always that order, and that choice of components?
I.e. either EQ->Mcomp->Lim or EQ->Lim? Which means you never use a
compressor pre-EQ?

And then you asked:

> You asked for "pre mastering" so it might be that you intend 
> to have a professional mastering engineer treat the mix? 

No, I'm just trying to use oldskool technology to appear more experienced 
;)
Historically (meaning: vinyl), "mastering" referred to the process of
cutting the audio material into the master disc thingie from which the
father, mother, son, daughter etc. were created to press the record. This
stage had its own name because it required an experienced engineer to 
obtain
top results. The stage before that in the signal chain, namely creating the
audio which should feed the cutting thingie was called "pre mastering".
Sometimes, these two steps happened in the same run, i.e. the mastering
engineer would apply his pre mastering effects to the mixdown tape and at
the same time have the cutter running (which required a cutter which could
be restarted).
Nowadays, as mastering is a fully-automatized and non-creative process,
people tend to refer to what was formerly known as pre-mastering as
mastering.

So just terminology.