Mixing down and master tracks

[Quintin]

Hello all, wanted to know the proper way to mixdown your final master track. What resolution? what sample rate? and should I use real time processing. What will get the best quality file? I alway do it to a WAV file.

 

[john]

Loads of questions there. I would bring in @Steve Mueske

 

I would always mix to as high a resolution as my system can handle. That means there is no fixed answer. High resolutions and frequencies will give you low latency, which is good. It is important to keep quality and clarity.as high as possible.

 

Using high quality helps kee your options open. CD audio is 44.1kHz, 16 bit... which is the absolute minimum... however if you work to that standard, Blu-ray and high definition video audio will be severely compromised. It is easy to remove detail by format conversion, moving from high resolution to low resolution... ie if your master is high quality, changing to CD format is easy.

 

However, going in the opposite direction is problematic... you cannot add missing detail.

 

As to file format:

 

MP3 is lossy and compressed. It doesn’t support high def.... so forget it for mastering.

 

AAC, very similar to MP3.

 

WAV is the bare minimum high def. It is uncompressed so you will have big file sizes. One big issue is not the audio, but the poor meta data support... it’s terrible. You can’t effectively embed your ISRC code.

 

AIFF Apple’s WAV file alernative. Lossless and uncompressed with much better metadata support, but not well supported.

 

FLAC... lossless compressed hi -resolution. commonly used for high res album storage.

 

ALAC as FLAC, but Apple’s version. Not as widely supported.

 

DSD, less common, less supported hi res format for super audio CDs

 

MQA Hi res lossless compression used for hi res streaming but not well supported

 

 

BluRay uses 24 bit/96 kHz or 24 bit 192 kHz... so if your master is a WAV, you are in trouble.

 

Modern standard video will use 48kHz audio, but that is a distribution format.

 

Ultimately your master needs to be as high a resolution as possible to be a silly portable to the variety of distribution formats as possible

 

I hope this helps.

[Quintin]

9 hours ago, john said:

I hope this helps.

Yes very good info

[john]

34 minutes ago, Steve Mueske said:

John, you can embed the ISRC codes in WAV files, but you need a Redbook compatible program like Wavelab or Sound Forge.

 

It’s been a wee while, but if I recall it’s not natively supported, more of a fudge to add it?

[TCgypsy]

I would use 44.1 or 48.0 - personally I use 48.0 (downconvert to 44.1 for CD). When you stream your music on soundcloud or whatever, they are going to turn it into an MP3 anyway. NEVER use dither if you hand it off to soundcloud (or any streaming website for that matter).

16 bit resolution is old school; you can master to 24 bit now and downconvert (there are so many different formats this gives you a better quality starting file). If you are mastering to various formats, that is a whole 'nother can of worms but my understanding is that you are not trying to be a mastering engineer but just want to know what a good final configuration would be for your songs.

 

If you start at 44/48 @ 24-bit WAV (or AIFF), you will have a solid format that all modern codecs can handle in terms of conversion to CD or streaming or whatever. By the way, bit depth is far more important than sampling rate; don't buy into the 192/384 KHz bullshit (go on gearslutz and listen to the pros talk about this sometime). If you want to go 'whole-hog' you can certainly master to various formats but I believe this is outside the scope of most songwriters/project studios.