Mastering Audio Files / Songs

FlashGordon wrote on 11/16/2012, 5:27 PM
I just got back from the TAXI Road Rally in LA and one of the workshops talked about "Mastering Music For Film & TV" and I'm wondering what program you Vegas heads out there use for "mastering". I record and mix in both ACID & Vegas and am wondering if I should take the final audio mix that I create when I "Burn Disc - Track At Once Audio CD" and bring it into SoundForge or some other program (that I don't have) to "Master". Any opinions would be welcome and appreciated. Also when I was at the Road Rally I asked the Pro Tools guy at their booth if there is any difference between DAWs in the sense that if you have a good room, a good mic and a good preamp / interface, is there a difference in a digital audio file captured / created in Pro Tools versus ACID, Vegas or any other DAW. He distinctly answered "No".
Also something maybe someone can answer is can you change the tempo in Vegas? ACID has a "BPM & Time Signature & Key" function tool and it'd be real nice if I could have those same tools in Vegas. Thanks for your help.

Comments

rraud wrote on 11/17/2012, 5:52 PM
Mastering Music For Film & TV" ?
Sound Forge or right in VP
Generally, the final level is done by the audio post house (or person) so you do not need to concern yourself with ATSC an EBU loudness specs/meters and such. I would deliver to post a 48k/24bit PCM (WAVE or AIFF) file with peaks around -10.0dB or so, which should yield adequate levels to for post to work with, and.. go easy on compression and limiting. If needed, the post house can add more if needed. Some sound design engineers prefer to have music stems, opposed to a stereo mix.. any 5:1 mixing should be left to post.
All things being equal, there should be little difference in the sound between DAWs .. Though the 'summing' may vary. FWIW, PTs just recently switched to a 32 floating bit architecture, which SF and Vegas has always used... at least I think.
I don't deal much with tempo changes, but the time can be expanded or compressed in VP w/o changing the pitch.., drastic time changes will produce artifacts however.
musicvid10 wrote on 11/17/2012, 7:33 PM
The trial version of ToneBoosters EBU/ATSC doesn't expire and I use them a lot.
Appears to be a knockoff of NuGen with a slightly different interface.