10 Steps For Mixing With Mastering In Mind
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One of the things that mastering pros complain about is that so few mixers actually think about how the things they do while mixing might affect mastering. Mastering is the final creative place in the production process where a mix can be altered, but the mix won’t necessarily be improved unless you help the mastering engineer out by following some very simple tips when you’re mixing.
Here are 10 steps for mixing with mastering in mind compiled from the latest 3rd edition of The Mastering Engineer’s Handbook. The tips apply not only to online distribution, but CD and vinyl as well.
“Regardless of if you master your final mixes yourself or take them to a mastering engineer, things will go a lot faster if you prepare for mastering ahead of time. Nothing is so exasperating to all involved as not knowing which mix is the correct one or forgetting the file name. Here are some tips to get your tracks “mastering ready”.
1. Don’t Over-EQ When Mixing: A mix is over-EQed when it has big spikes in its frequency response as a result of trying to make one or more instruments sit better in the mix. This can make your mix tear your head off because it’s too bright, or have a huge and unnatural sounding bottom. In general, mastering engineers can do a better job for you if your mix is on the dull side rather than too bright. Likewise, it’s better to be light on the bottom end than have too much.
2. Don’t Over-compress When Mixing: Over-compression means that you’ve added so much mix bus compression that the mix is robbed of all it’s life. You can tell that a mix has been over-compressed not only by its sound, but by the way its waveform is flat-lined on the DAW timeline. You might as well not even master if you’ve squashed it too much already. Hypercompression (see Chapter 6) deprives the mastering engineer of one of his major abilities to help your project. Squash it for your friends, squash it for your clients, but leave some dynamics in the song so the mastering engineer is better able to do his thing. In general, it’s best to compress and control levels on an individual track basis and not as much on the stereo bus except to prevent digital overs.
3. Having The Levels Match Between Songs Is Not Important: Just make your mixes sound great, because matching levels between songs is one of the reasons you master in the first place.
4. Getting Hot Mix Levels Is Not Important: You still have plenty of headroom even if you print your mix with peaks reaching –10 dB or so. Leave it to the mastering engineer to get those hot levels. It’s another reason why you master.
5. Watch Your Fades and Trims: If you trim the heads and tails of your track too tightly, you might discover that you’ve trimmed a reverb trail or essential attack or breath. Leave a little room and perfect it in mastering where you will probably hear things better.
6. Make Sure To Print The Highest Resolution Mixes You Can: Lossy formats like MP3’s, Window’s Media or Real Audio and even audio CDs won’t cut it and will give you an inferior product in the end. Print the highest resolution mixes possible by staying at the same resolution as the tracks were recorded at. In other words, if the tracks were cut at a sample rate of 96kHz/24 bit, that’s the resolution your mix should be. If it’s at 44.1kHz/24 bit, that’s the resolution the mix should be.
7. Alternate Mixes Can Be Your Friend: A vocal up/down or instrument-only mix can be a life-saver when mastering. Things that aren’t apparent while mixing sometimes jump right out during mastering and having an alternative mix around can sometimes provide a quick fix and keep you from having to remix. Make sure you document them properly though.
8. Check Your Phase When Mixing: It can be a real shock when you get to the mastering studio and the engineer begins to check for mono compatibility and the lead singer or guitar solo disappears from the mix because something in the track is out-of-phase. Even though this was more of a problem in the days of vinyl and AM radio, it’s still an important point since many so-called stereo sources (such as television) are either pseudo-stereo or only stereo some of the time. Check it and fix it before you get there.
9. Know Your Song Sequence: Song sequencing takes a lot of thought in order to make an album flow, so you really don’t want to leave that until the mastering session. If you’re cutting vinyl, remember that you need two sequences – one for each side. Remember, the masters can’t be completed without the sequence. Also, cutting vinyl is a one-shot deal with no undo’s like on a workstation. It’ll cost you money every time you change your mind.
10. Have Your Songs Timed Out: This is important if you’re going to be making a CD or vinyl record. First, you want to make sure that your project can easily fit on a CD, if that’s your release format. Most CD’s have a total time of just under 80 minutes. When mastering for vinyl, cumulative time is important because the mastering engineer must know the total time per side before he starts cutting. Due to the physical limitations of the disc, you’re limited to a maximum of about 25 minutes per side if you want the record to be nice and loud.”
MUSIC IS CENTRAL TO THE COMPANY’S BRAND IDENTITY, BUT ITUNES HAS GOTTEN STALE. HOW BEATS COULD BRING COOL BACK TO CUPERTINO
As the child of an elementary school teacher, I was able to borrow a Macintosh desktop computer from the library every summer. But even at the age of nine, I was keenly aware that there was nothing especially cool about a Mac. It was the mid-’90s–the era of Power Rangers and Pokémon–and when friends came over they walked right past the sleek, white cube. (“Wanna play Number Munchers on my Mac?” “Uh, no. Let’s go outside.”) It wasn’t until several years later that I got my hands on a piece of Apple technology that made me–and Apple–seem hip in the eyes of my peers: the iPod. (It was so desirable, in fact, that my first one got stolen.)
Before the iPod and iTunes, Apple was a respected, innovative computer company, but it was still just a computer company–a brand that made things most people thought of as tools for homework or running a small business. Music is what turned Apple into a pop-culture phenomenon. Suddenly iPods were showing up in Mary J. Blige videos, kids were ripping their entire CD collections (remember CD collections?), and a series of ubiquitous Apple commercials were boosting the careers of actual bands such as Feist and CSS.
That fundamental shift might help explain why Apple recently shelled out $3.2 billion for Beats Electronics, the company behind a line of wildly popular headphones and–more crucially–a heavily hyped new streaming service. More than a decade after music transformed Apple, customers are now starting to hum a different melody. Downloads for the entire industry have slid more than 13% in the first quarter of 2014, while streaming services–which Steve Jobs notoriously ignored, insisting that people didn’t want to “rent” songs–are remaking the music landscape. Thanks to companies like Spotify, Pandora, and YouTube, song and video streams grew to 34 billion this year, an increase of 9 billion from a year ago.
Apple’s slipping hold on music is more of a danger to its psyche than its coffers. At last count, its music downloads were bringing in $4 billion a year, only a fraction of Apple’s total $171 billion in revenue. But the company has to be worried about losing its grip on such a crucial part of its brand. After all, Apple has long prided itself on outsmarting the major labels when it came to digital music. Now it risks becoming the sort of slow-to-react behemoth it once disrupted. At its core, the acquisition of Beats can be seen as a bid to stay relevant in the music world–a world that is central to Apple’s modern identity.
For this piece of Apple’s strategy, success will likely depend on one man: Beats CEOJimmy Iovine, who cofounded the company in 2006 with the rapper Dr. Dre. When music-industry insiders describe Iovine–a onetime recording engineer and producer who worked on albums by John Lennon, Bruce Springsteen, and many others–a word that comes up often is ear. As the longtime head of Interscope Records, Iovine has proven himself a master tastemaker with an eerie ability to spot hits and envelope-pushing artists. “He’s one of those rare individuals who really understands how to move the cultural needle,” says Ammunition Group founder Robert Brunner, who designed the Beats by Dre headphones and was previously the director of industrial design at Apple. “How we designed and communicated [the headphones] elevated the product to this very high status, so that people wanted to participate in the brand.” Now Iovine and Dre have joined the Apple team, cranking the record-biz credibility of Apple’s executive suite up to 11.
Iovine’s connections could prove crucial for future deals with musicians and labels. “Having Apple, the biggest artist-friendly company, be in that [streaming] game is very important,” says Peter Csathy, CEO of Manatt Digital Media, a venture-capital firm that invests in music and media companies. “With Beats’ relationships with the artist community, Apple is essentially buying that goodwill.” It was Iovine, after all, who brokered many of iTunes’ first deals with music labels.
Will all of this translate into an effective makeover of Apple’s music products? There’s work to be done: iTunes isn’t as exciting as it once was, with a music-consumption experience that increasingly feels old-fashioned. Unlike such newer companies as Rdio, Apple doesn’t make music especially discoverable, and its pay-per-track model is hard to swallow when Spotify offers unlimited streaming of countless albums. Compared to data- driven streaming services that constantly offer suggestions, Apple just seems a bit sleepy. “How many years have we been on iTunes?” says Ben Arnold, a consumer electronics analyst at the NPD Group. “You would think it knows more about my music-listening preferences than I do.”
Beats Music is especially focused on personalization. You just broke up with your boyfriend? Here’s a playlist that might help you get over that jerk. Simply telling users, “This is a new song: Buy it,” may have worked in iTunes’ formative days, but with millions of tracks now available and no efficient way to sort through them, the iTunes Store isn’t much more inviting than the chaotic Google Play.
It isn’t yet clear how–or if–Apple plans to integrate Beats Music into iTunes. But merging the two could succeed where previous Apple efforts like Ping (a defunct music-focused social network and recommendation system) and the Pandora-like iTunes Radio underwhelmed. Imagine an “iBeats” service that offers you Beats’ playlist curators–such as New York’s Hot 97 radio station–but also compares your tastes with data from Apple’s 800 million iTunes Store accounts to generate highly personalized suggestions. “If they’ve got this streaming service combined with your library of music, that certainly becomes an advantage if you’re going against some of these [newer] services,” Arnold says.
Yet reenergizing Apple’s connection to music isn’t just about the music–it’s about the whole Apple ecosystem. The Beats by Dre headphones, which currently make up 62% of the premium-headphone market, have huge youth appeal, with most being purchased by people ages 13 to 34, according to NPD. For the aging iTunes–and for Apple overall–tapping into that demographic is key. Apple earbuds are now about as trendy as cassingles, and even the company’s ad campaigns, once known for their anthemic feel, have occasionally slipped toward nostalgia. (Why choose 1961′s “Chicken Fat,” by Robert Preston, for an iPhone 5S ad?) Some spots have had more edge; the “What Will Your Verse Be?” campaign features music from Brooklyn indie band the National and Finnish composer Esa-Pekka Salonen. Still, with Iovine around, the odds improve that Apple will strike the right notes.
Whatever happens, Apple’s bet on Beats is sure to change the way the company approaches music. “Jimmy’s passion is to constantly reinvent how people experience music,” says Brunner. “For him, I think this is an opportunity to work with the best company in the world to reinvent that again.” In other words, Apple has the tools it needs. Now all it has to do is get back on track.
Being an entrepreneur is hard work. It takes dedication, respect, and a little patience to finally see ones’ dreams come to fruition and profit off of the product that an individual has invested their time in. Follow these 25 common rules in order to be on the path to success as a professional entrepreneur.
Like any activity you pursue, there are certain musts that are required to be successful in a chosen activity. To legally operate a vehicle on public roadways, one must have a driver’s license; to excel in sports, one must train and practice; to retire comfortably, one must become an informed investor and actively invest for retirement. If your goal is success in business, then the formula is no different. There are certain musts that have to be fully developed, implemented and managed for your business to succeed. There are many business musts, but this article contains I believe to be some of the more important musts that are required to start, operate and grow a profitable home business.
1. Do what you enjoy.
What you get out of your business in the form of personal satisfaction, financial gain, stability and enjoyment will be the sum of what you put into your business. So if you don’t enjoy what you’re doing, in all likelihood it’s safe to assume that will be reflected in the success of your business–or subsequent lack of success. In fact, if you don’t enjoy what you’re doing, chances are you won’t succeed.
2. Take what you do seriously.
You cannot expect to be effective and successful in business unless you truly believe in your business and in the goods and services that you sell. Far too many home business owners fail to take their own businesses seriously enough, getting easily sidetracked and not staying motivated and keeping their noses to the grindstone. They also fall prey to naysayers who don’t take them seriously because they don’t work from an office building, office park, storefront, or factory. Little do these skeptics, who rain on the home business owner’s parade, know is that the number of people working from home, and making very good annual incomes, has grown by leaps and bounds in recent years.
3. Plan everything.
Planning every aspect of your home business is not only a must, but also builds habits that every home business owner should develop, implement, and maintain. The act of business planning is so important because it requires you to analyze each business situation, research and compile data, and make conclusions based mainly on the facts as revealed through the research. Business planning also serves a second function, which is having your goals and how you will achieve them, on paper. You can use the plan that you create both as map to take you from point A to Z and as a yardstick to measure the success of each individual plan or segment within the plan.
4. Manage money wisely.
The lifeblood of any business enterprise is cash flow. You need it to buy inventory, pay for services, promote and market your business, repair and replace tools and equipment, and pay yourself so that you can continue to work. Therefore, all home business owners must become wise money managers to ensure that the cash keeps flowing and the bills get paid. There are two aspects to wise money management.
The money you receive from clients in exchange for your goods and services you provide (income)
The money you spend on inventory, supplies, wages and other items required to keep your business operating. (expenses)
5. Ask for the sale.
A home business entrepreneur must always remember that marketing, advertising, or promotional activities are completely worthless, regardless of how clever, expensive, or perfectly targeted they are, unless one simple thing is accomplished–ask for the sale. This is not to say that being a great salesperson, advertising copywriting whiz or a public relations specialist isn’t a tremendous asset to your business. However, all of these skills will be for naught if you do not actively ask people to buy what you are selling.
6. Remember it’s all about the customer.
Your home business is not about the products or services that you sell. Your home business is not about the prices that you charge for your goods and services. Your home business is not about your competition and how to beat them. Your business is all about your customers, or clients, period. After all, your customers are the people that will ultimately decide if your business goes boom or bust. Everything you do in business must be customer focused, including your policies, warranties, payment options, operating hours, presentations, advertising and promotional campaigns and website. In addition, you must know who your customers are inside out and upside down.
Related: Keeping Your Customers Satisfied — It’s All in the Details
7. Become a shameless self-promoter (without becoming obnoxious).
One of the greatest myths about personal or business success is that eventually your business, personal abilities, products or services will get discovered and be embraced by the masses that will beat a path to your door to buy what you are selling. But how can this happen if no one knows who you are, what you sell and why they should be buying?
Self-promotion is one of the most beneficial, yet most underutilized, marketing tools that the majority of home business owners have at their immediate disposal.
8. Project a positive business image.
You have but a passing moment to make a positive and memorable impression on people with whom you intend to do business. Home business owners must go out of their way and make a conscious effort to always project the most professional business image possible. The majority of home business owners do not have the advantage of elaborate offices or elegant storefronts and showrooms to wow prospects and impress customers. Instead, they must rely on imagination, creativity and attention to the smallest detail when creating and maintaining a professional image for their home business.
9. Get to know your customers.
One of the biggest features and often the most significant competitive edge the home based entrepreneur has over the larger competitors is the he can offer personalized attention. Call it high-tech backlash if you will, but customers are sick and tired of hearing that their information is somewhere in the computer and must be retrieved, or told to push a dozen digits to finally get to the right department only to end up with voice mail–from which they never receive a return phone call.
The home business owner can actually answer phone calls, get to know customers, provide personal attention and win over repeat business by doing so. It’s a researched fact that most business (80 percent) will come from repeat customers rather than new customers. Therefore, along with trying to draw newcomers, the more you can do to woo your regular customers, the better off you will be in the long run and personalized attention is very much appreciated and remembered in the modern high tech world.
Related: Why You Should Never Prejudge a Sales Prospect
10. Level the playing field with technology.
You should avoid getting overly caught up in the high-tech world, but you should also know how to take advantage of using it. One of the most amazing aspects of the internet is that a one or two person business operating from a basement can have a superior website to a $50 million company, and nobody knows the difference. Make sure you’re keeping up with the high-tech world as it suits your needs.. The best technology is that which helps you, not that which impresses your neighbors.
11. Build a top-notch business team.
No one person can build a successful business alone. It’s a task that requires a team that is as committed as you to the business and its success. Your business team may include family members, friends, suppliers, business alliances, employees, sub-contractors, industry and business associations, local government and the community. Of course the most important team members will be your customers or clients. Any or all may have a say in how your business will function and a stake in your business future.
Related: Why Teamwork Should Be Your No. 1 Sales Tool
12. Become known as an expert.
When you have a problem that needs to be solved, do you seek just anyone’s advice or do you seek an expert in the field to help solve your particular problem? Obviously, you want the most accurate information and assistance that you can get. You naturally seek an expert to help solve your problem. You call a plumber when the hot water tank leaks, a real estate agent when it’s time to sell your home or a dentist when you have a toothache. Therefore, it only stands to reason that the more you become known for your expertise in your business, the more people will seek you out to tap into your expertise, creating more selling and referral opportunities. In effect, becoming known as an expert is another style of prospecting for new business, just in reverse. Instead of finding new and qualified people to sell to, these people seek you out for your expertise.
13. Create a competitive advantage.
A home business must have a clearly defined unique selling proposition. This is nothing more than a fancy way of asking the vital question, “Why will people choose to do business with you or purchase your product or service instead of doing business with a competitor and buying his product or service?” In other words, what one aspect or combination of aspects is going to separate your business from your competition? Will it be better service, a longer warranty, better selection, longer business hours, more flexible payment options, lowest price, personalized service, better customer service, better return and exchange policies or a combination of several of these?
14. Invest in yourself.
Top entrepreneurs buy and read business and marketing books, magazines, reports, journals, newsletters, websites and industry publications, knowing that these resources will improve their understanding of business and marketing functions and skills. They join business associations and clubs, and they network with other skilled business people to learn their secrets of success and help define their own goals and objectives. Top entrepreneurs attend business and marketing seminars, workshops and training courses, even if they have already mastered the subject matter of the event. They do this because they know that education is an ongoing process. There are usually ways to do things better, in less time, with less effort. In short, top entrepreneurs never stop investing in the most powerful, effective and best business and marketing tool at their immediate disposal–themselves.
15. Be accessible.
We’re living in a time when we all expect our fast food lunch at the drive-thru window to be ready in mere minutes, our dry cleaning to be ready for pick-up on the same day, our money to be available at the cash machine and our pizza delivered in 30 minutes or it’s free. You see the pattern developing–you must make it as easy as you can for people to do business with you, regardless of the home business you operate.
You must remain cognizant of the fact that few people will work hard, go out of their way, or be inconvenienced just for the privilege of giving you their hard-earned money. The shoe is always on the other foot. Making it easy for people to do business with you means that you must be accessible and knowledgeable about your products and services. You must be able to provide customers with what they want, when they want it.
16. Build a rock-solid reputation.
A good reputation is unquestionably one of the home business owner’s most tangible and marketable assets. You can’t simply buy a good reputation; it’s something that you earn by honoring your promises. If you promise to have the merchandise in the customer’s hands by Wednesday, you have no excuse not to have it there. If you offer to repair something, you need to make good on your offer. Consistency in what you offer is the other key factor. If you cannot come through with the same level of service (and products) for clients on a regular basis, they have no reason to trust you . . . and without trust, you won’t have a good reputation.
17. Sell benefits.
Pushing product features is for inexperienced or wannabe entrepreneurs. Selling the benefits associated with owning and using the products and services you carry is what sales professionals worldwide focus on to create buying excitement and to sell, sell more, and sell more frequently to their customers. Your advertising, sales presentations, printed marketing materials, product packaging, website, newsletters, trade show exhibit and signage are vital. Every time and every medium used to communicate with your target audience must always be selling the benefits associated with owning your product or using your service.
18. Get involved.
Always go out of your way to get involved in the community that supports your business. You can do this in many ways, such as pitching in to help local charities or the food bank, becoming involved in organizing community events, and getting involved in local politics. You can join associations and clubs that concentrate on programs and policies designed to improve the local community. It’s a fact that people like to do business with people they know, like and respect, and with people who do things to help them as members of the community.
19. Grab attention.
Small-business owners cannot waste time, money and energy on promotional activities aimed at building awareness solely through long-term, repeated exposure. If you do, chances are you will go broke long before this goal is accomplished. Instead, every promotional activity you engage in, must put money back in your pocket so that you can continue to grab more attention and grow your business.
20. Master the art of negotiations.
The ability to negotiate effectively is unquestionably a skill that every home business owner must make every effort to master. It’s perhaps second in importance only to asking for the sale in terms of home business musts. In business, negotiation skills are used daily. Always remember that mastering the art of negotiation means that your skills are so finely tuned that you can always orchestrate a win-win situation. These win-win arrangements mean that everyone involved feels they have won, which is really the basis for building long-term and profitable business relationships.
21. Design Your workspace for success.
Carefully plan and design your home office workspace to ensure maximum personal performance and productivity and, if necessary, to project professionalism for visiting clients. If at all possible, resist the temptation to turn a corner of the living room or your bedroom into your office. Ideally, you’ll want a separate room with a door that closes to keep business activities in and family members out, at least during prime business and revenue generating hours of the day. A den, spare bedroom, basement or converted garage are all ideal candidates for your new home office. If this is not possible, you’ll have to find a means of converting a room with a partition or simply find hours to do the bulk of your work when nobody else is home.
22. Get and stay organized.
The key to staying organized is not about which type of file you have or whether you keep a stack or two of papers on your desk, but it’s about managing your business. It’s about having systems in place to do things. Therefore, you wan to establish a routine by which you can accomplish as much as possible in a given workday, whether that’s three hours for a part-time business or seven or nine hours as a full-timer. In fact, you should develop systems and routines for just about every single business activity. Small things such as creating a to-do list at the end of each business day, or for the week, will help keep you on top of important tasks to tackle. Creating a single calendar to work from, not multiple sets for individual tasks or jobs, will also ensure that jobs are completed on schedule and appointments kept. Incorporating family and personal activities into your work calendar is also critical so that you work and plan from a single calendar.
23. Take time off.
The temptation to work around the clock is very real for some home business owners. After all, you don’t have a manager telling you it’s time to go home because they can’t afford the overtime pay. Every person working from home must take time to establish a regular work schedule that includes time to stretch your legs and take lunch breaks, plus some days off and scheduled vacations. Create the schedule as soon as you have made the commitment to start a home business. Of course, your schedule will have to be flexible. You should, therefore, not fill every possible hour in the day. Give yourself a backup hour or two. All work and no play makes you burn out very fast and grumpy customer service is not what people want.
24. Limit the number of hats you wear.
It’s difficult for most business owners not to take a hands-on approach. They try to do as much as possible and tackle as many tasks as possible in their business. The ability to multitask, in fact, is a common trait shared by successful entrepreneurs. However, once in a while you have to stand back and look beyond today to determine what’s in the best interest of your business and yourself over the long run. Most highly successful entrepreneurs will tell you that from the time they started out, they knew what they were good at and what tasks to delegate to others.
25. Follow-up constantly.
Constant contact, follow-up, and follow-through with customers, prospects, and business alliances should be the mantra of every home business owner, new or established. Constant and consistent follow-up enables you to turn prospects into customers, increase the value of each sale and buying frequency from existing customers, and build stronger business relationships with suppliers and your core business team. Follow-up is especially important with your existing customer base, as the real work begins after the sale. It’s easy to sell one product or service, but it takes work to retain customers and keep them coming back.
Motivation continues from day 1 till the end. There are times some people get weary, tired, and discouraged. But here are 21 ways to keep the motivation going for days, months, and years to come.
1. Necessity. This one is incredibly underrated which is why I put it first. You have bills that have to be paid and employees who are counting on you. If those two things won’t keep you going, I don’t know what will.
2. Personal pride. Although they rarely talk about it publicly, many entrepreneurs are extremely proud of what they have accomplished and take (usually quiet) satisfaction in keeping the enterprise going no matter what problems arise.
3. A mission to change the world. A significant number of the entrepreneurs and business people I talked to truly believe their offerings will make the world a better place. It is the deeply help belief in that mission that keeps them going.
4. Quotes. Inspirational quotes were cited by many, but how they used them were as unique as they are. Some literally had a wall or white board filled with quotes they had discovered through the years, while others took to putting a particular favorite (such as “just keep swimming,” from the kids’
5. Support groups (Part I.) Many entrepreneurs met periodically with other entrepreneurs who could offer words of encouragement and advice when they were stuck.
6. Support groups (Part II). Even if they did not ask for advice, simply being associated with other successful people made the entrepreneurs I talked to work harder. They didn’t want to fall behind their peers.
7. Consider the alternative. This one, too, took two forms. To keep themselves going, some entrepreneurs either thought back to the days before they started their companies and recalled how unhappy they were working for someone else. Or they pictured what it would be like to once again have a boss. Either image, they said, was enough to keep them going.
8. “I’ll show them.” More people than I would have thought say they keep going no matter what to prove to all the people “who told me I would never be successful, that they were wrong.”
9. A legacy. Knowing that their company may be the only real thing they are remembered for, or hoping that their kids will take over the business someday, keeps many entrepreneurs going, when times get tough or they simply get tired.
10. Build up momentum. Goals like: $500,000 in sales within the first year can sound awfully daunting from a standing start, i.e. you are beginning with no revenues. But, if you say, “let’s get $41,666.66 coming in this month; and $41,666.66 next month,” the numbers don’t seem as big, and you get a chance to celebrate 12 small wins, as well as the one big one, when you hit $500,000 in sales.
11. Figure out why you are tired. Simply knowing why you feeling blah can help, at the very least. At best, it will tell you what needs to change.
12. Visualization. Just focusing on what success will ultimately look like can keep you going.
13. We’re close. It may be the inherent optimism that most entrepreneurs have but truly believing that they are not that far away from a major breakthrough keeps many of them going.
14. Exercise. Sometimes being tired, depressed and wrung out is “simply” a matter of over-work or being out of shape (or both.) Taking a break–at regular points–could be enough to keep you going. And at the very least, if you get into shape you will have more energy–even if your exercise program doesn’t do a darn thing to improve your company’s performance.
15. Learn from your mistakes. Having things go wrong–you lost the sale; the client hates your work–is enough to get anyone down. Accept that and give yourself a short period of time to feel bad. Then learn from the experience and move on.
16. Don’t get in your own way. There will be enough circumstances beyond your control which will have the ability to depress you. Don’t add to the list yourself. Simplify everything you can. (Leaving yourself 10 minutes less than you need to get to the airport is never a good idea.) Delegate the stuff you are bad at. And become as organized as humanly possible. Creating more stress than you have to for yourself is simply dumb.
17. Keep score. If you are keeping a running tally of the jobs completed, clients landed, sales recorded since you first opened your doors, seeing the numbers increase–and wanting them to increase further–can be a great motivating force.
18. Keep telling yourself the best way to predict the future is to create it. And then go create it.
19. Get some sleep. When you are tired, everything seems worse than it is.
20. Others, too have suffered. Knowing that everyone is going through what you are going through now may not make you feel better. But it might.
21. When all else fails… keep putting one foot in front of the other. Tackle one thing that is important to do. And then another. You may still feel weary, but you will be that much closer to accomplishing your goal.
Many engineers overlook the attack and release controls on a compressor but they can affect the sound more than you think, especially during mastering. In the latest edition of The Mastering Engineer’s Handbook, I outline what these controls can do when used across a full mix either during mixing or mastering.
“The key to getting the most out of a compressor is the Attack and Release (sometimes called Recovery) parameter controls, which have a tremendous overall effect on a mix and therefore are important to understand. Generally speaking, transient response and percussive sounds are affected by the Attack control setting. Release is the time it takes for the gain to return to normal or zero gain reduction.
In a typical pop style mix, a fast attack setting will react to the drums and reduce the overall gain. If the release is set very fast, then the gain will return to normal quickly but can have an audible side effect of reducing some of the overall program level and attack of the drums in the mix. As the Release is set slower, the gain changes so that the drums might cause an effect called “pumping,” which means that the level of the mix will increase then decrease noticeably. Each time the dominant instrument starts or stops, it “pumps” the level of the mix up and down. Compressors that work best on full program material generally have very smooth release curves and slow release times to minimize this pumping effect.
Compression Tips And Tricks
Adjusting the Attack and Release controls on the compressor and/or limiter can have a surprising effect on the program sound.
Slower Release settings will usually make the gain changes less audible but will also lower the perceived volume.
A slow Attack setting will tend to ignore drums and other fast signals but will still react to the vocals and bass.
A slow Attack setting might also allow a transient to overload the next piece of equipment in the chain.
Gain changes on the compressor caused by the drum hits can pull down the level of the vocals and bass and cause overall volume changes in the program.
Usually only the fastest Attack and Release settings can make the sound “pump.”
The more bouncy the level meter, the more likely that the compression will be audible.
Quiet passages that are too loud and noisy are usually a giveaway that you are seriously over-compressing.
Don’t just set those attack and release controls to the middle range and forget about them. They can make a big difference on your final mastered sound.”
You can read more excerpts from The Mastering Engineer’s Handbook 3rd edition and my other books on the excerpts section of bobbyowsinski.com.
