{"id":1347,"date":"2010-08-19T14:13:41","date_gmt":"2010-08-19T13:13:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/?p=1347"},"modified":"2020-02-17T16:53:48","modified_gmt":"2020-02-17T16:53:48","slug":"5-0-mastering-with-the-tc-system-6000","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/?p=1347","title":{"rendered":"5.0 mastering with the TC System 6000"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

To get to know the various dynamics, EQ, and reverb effects on the TC System 6000 I tried a mastering session with the 5.0 mix files of my piece 24\/7: freedom fried<\/a> for viola d\u2019amore and computer.\u00a0 This was recorded in September 2006 at ZKM Karlsruhe<\/a>, Germany, by Garth Knox<\/a>.\u00a0 It was (is?) to be released on the Wergo<\/a> label with video art by Brian O\u2019Reilly; however it seems to be still mired in legal issues relating to the other pieces on the disc. [ update: someone must be listening: it\u2019s out.<\/a> ]<\/p>\n

We recorded the viola d\u2019amore in surround and even went to the trouble of re-recording the electronics in the same hall. We did this by playing the files through four D&B speakers and recording with a surround mic array in order to capture the ambience and create a more natural sounding mix with the live viola.\u00a0 I was never really happy with the room sound though, so I was curious to see if a little TC surround reverb would help out.<\/p>\n

The mastering chain<\/h3>\n

The mastering was a three-step insert chain process: MDX5.1 \u2013> 5.1 EQ \u2013> VSS 6.1 Generic Reverb<\/p>\n

The MDX5.1 dynamics processing was perhaps the most impressive effect used here.\u00a0 It has a radically different approach to dynamics, raising lower levels but not higher, so there\u2019s an overall increase in weight to the sound but the transients don\u2019t get squashed.\u00a0 Very effective; very slick.\u00a0 There\u2019s a soft limiter (which I didn\u2019t use) and a brick-wall limiter too (which I did use, just for safety\u2013the limiting light did flash a couple of times in the piece but no more than that).<\/p>\n

5.1 EQ was a joy to use after being forced in the past to EQ surround mixes with an array of three stereo plugins (or even worse: three passes with stereo outboard).\u00a0 Because there was some pretty untamed bass in the original mix (I thought I\u2019d monitored correctly back then\u2026hmm\u2026.) I did\u00a0 a pretty heavy high-pass (9DB per octave) starting as high as 68 Hz.\u00a0 I also lifted a touch with a shelf at 8Kz and two fairly wide parametrics at 700Hz and 2.5KHz to give the sound a little more body and presence.\u00a0 I was surprised at how characterless, or rather transparent, the filters were; I was also shocked at how much boost or cut could be added without wrecking the sound (no harshness to my ears).<\/p>\n

At this point I had to print the effects to disc as\u2013running at 96KHz\u2013I had no more processing power on the TC to do the reverb.<\/p>\n

As I had a complete 5.0 mix I used the VSS 6.1 Generic Reverb algorithm in 5.0 mode.*\u00a0 I used the Vienna hall preset and first tuned the reverb alone by fading the early reflections and dry sound right down (there\u2019s no wet\/dry setting here).\u00a0 I low-passed the reverb drastically, taking out everything above 1.5KHz, as well as everything under 174Hz, if I remember correctly.\u00a0 I then adjusted the decay time to around 1.5secs, where I had the feeling that the individual events weren\u2019t bleeding into each other but there was quite a thick hall ambience.\u00a0 Then I played with the early reflections, brought up the dry level to unity, and adjusted the reverb level to -21db.\u00a0 I was surprised here just how much difference +\/- 0.5db reverb made.\u00a0 In any case, without being too present as an obvious effect, the reverb added a real touch of class and depth; it couldn\u2019t take away the original room sound completely of course, but I think it distracted significantly.<\/p>\n

Demo files<\/h3>\n

Surround channel order in multichannel files tends to cause a lot of confusion, especially in the compressed formats.\u00a0 The ogg vorbis file order for surround is supposed to be as follows:<\/p>\n

5.0: front left, center, front right, rear left, rear right
\n5.1: front left, center, front right, rear left, rear right, LFE<\/p>\n

I used Max<\/a> to encode an Ogg Vorbis 5.0 file at 256kbps.\u00a0 The channel order I then got was L=1,C=2,Ls=3,Rs=4,R=5.\u00a0 Before listening to the piece you should probably route your channels according to the following test file:<\/p>\n

5.0-test<\/a><\/p>\n

For comparison, here\u2019s the opening of the unmastered version:<\/p>\n

24-7-beg-unmastered<\/a><\/p>\n

The whole five-channel mastered piece runs to 14mins32 and yet is under 27MB, which is pretty astonishing really:<\/p>\n

24-7-5.0<\/a><\/p>\n

Session Files<\/h3>\n

Maybe these will be of use to future Reid surround masterers:<\/p>\n

ProTools file: TCSys6000MasterAug10<\/a>
\n[NB due to wordpress restrictions I wasn\u2019t able to upload a .ptf protools file, so I renamed it to pdf and all was fine (great security!).\u00a0 So rename to .ptf and this should work in PT8]<\/p>\n

Notes on the Mytek settings for digital routing to and from the TC<\/h4>\n
mytek 1: source to digital out: aes\r\n                (i.e. TC return is on mytek1 aes)\r\n         source to analog out: dio card1 for protools\r\n                               aes for TC direct\r\n                (i.e. main analog monitor outs are on\r\n                 mytek1)\r\n\r\nmytek 2: source to digital out: dio card 1\r\n                (i.e. TC send is on mytek2 aes)\r\n         source to analog out:  irrelevant but if\r\n                                dio card 1 will send dry\r\n                                mix to ch 9-15 on desk\r\n\r\ndesk channels 1-6 are outputs\r\nselect EXTA as MON SRC (RH of desk)\r\nset channels 1-6 track busses as 1-6 also\r\n        (ITU Surround Order: L R C LFE Ls Rs)\r\n<\/pre>\n
* TC distinguish between Source and Generic reverbs in their algorithms.\u00a0 From the manual \u201cUntil 15-20 years ago, digital reverb was mostly used as a generic effect applied to many sources of a mix.\u00a0 Nowadays, where more aux send and returns are at disposal, new approaches have emerged. Elements of the mix are being treated individually, adding room character, flavor and depth in more creative and complex ways. At TC, we call this a Source based approach, and we have put more than 30 man-years of development time into design and refinement of Source based room simulation.\u00a0 When Generic digital reverbs were invented, they stretched the DSPpower and memory bandwidth capabilities of their time; and Source specific processing was completely out of the question. Even though we may now consider Generic types to be less than ideal, they still have applications for which they may be chosen instead of their Source based cousins.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
To get to know the various dynamics, EQ, and reverb effects on the TC System 6000 I tried a mastering session with the 5.0 mix files of my piece 24\/7: freedom fried for viola d\u2019amore and computer.\u00a0 This was recorded in September 2006 at ZKM Karlsruhe, Germany, by Garth Knox.\u00a0 It was (is?) to be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1348,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,11,52,79,76],"tags":[3,4,150,6,192],"class_list":["post-1347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-algorithmic-composition","category-composition-documentation","category-recording","category-releases","category-university-of-edinburgh","tag-algorithms","tag-common-lisp","tag-music-and-video","tag-slippery-chicken","tag-viola-damore"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1347"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1347\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1354,"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1347\/revisions\/1354"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}