Saintpid Mastering

Although a skilled mastering engineer should have the ability to find and enhance what is great and unique with every track he/she works with regardless of one’s personal taste, you can’t deny that working with music you enjoy do make a difference. During 2018 I had a couple of projects that stand out from the crowd and that has found its way to my personal playlist, my 2018 number #1 would be the unreleased album by Marie Sjåvik (which I’m sure will take the world by storm when released) and another favorite was the band Marble Mammoth and especially the song ‘Crack Baby Panic Attack’. It was a true bliss to work with this song, perfectly mixed by Labros at http://labrosproductions.com/, some small EQ and dynamic adjustments, set the volume against their other tracks and then just close my eyes and enjoy the music. It’s almost as if great music masters itself.
Now there’s a video to accompany the track and the song has gotten even better!

Efter 2 intensiva veckor så är nu 40 spår mixade och mastrade åt Killmonday Games spel Little Misfortune. Precis som deras tidigare spel Fran Bow så är Little Misfortunes värld en blandning av något glatt och barnsligt till det mörkaste mörka, och då menar jag verkligen det mörkaste av det mörkaste. Ingenting verkar vara tabu, mord, alkoholism, alla droger du kan tänka dig och en pappa med en meth-fabrik i källaren flyter förbi ackompanjerade av Misfortunes barnsligt söta kommentarer och glada stämma. Tyvärr har en bug i preview-versionen jag har hindrat mig från att ta mig till the Eternal Happiness så nu längtar jag efter den beta som ska finnas inom 2 veckor.

Här hittar ni Little Misfortune på Steam, lägg till det på er wishlist asap!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/714120/Little_Misfortune/

Under senaste månaderna har det jobbats med en hel del dataspelsmusik här på Saintpid. Just nu manglar vi igenom 40 spår som ska mixas och mastras för kommande Little Misfortune från Killmonday Games.

En sak som varit gemensamt för alla dataspelsprojekt är att beställarna velat ha det dynamiskt. Det är ju kul eftersom det är så musik gör sig bäst!
Ni kommer få höra mer om Little Misfortune framöver men det får bli när spelet är släppt, så länge får ni njuta av en liten smygtitt på inspelningen av soundtracket till spelet Airport CEO som är skrivet och producerat av Sinephony och mastrat här på Saintpid.

The past year has been filled with so many fun and interesting assignments it’s hard to pick any favorites. To mention a few, I mastered music for an IKEA advertisement, mastered music and mixed the trailer to the upcoming game Little Misfortune from Killmonday Games and did a numerous bunch of albums and singles. Thanks to all of you who entrusted me with your exciting and challenging assignments and I’ll be seeing you again during 2019!

We added a new column with Sample Peak values to the ISP limiter test. So far it’s only New Fangled Audio’s Elevate that actually contain a value but we’ll slowly start to update old tests and all new additions will have Sample Peak as well as True Peak!

https://www.saintpid.se/isp-true-peak-limiters-test/

Det är rörigt hos musikverket och det rör till det i en av Sveriges mest framgångsrika kulturinvesteringar. EMS studion har odlat både framgångsrika kompositörer och Sveriges avtryck på den musikaliska världskartan och jag kan inte tänkta mig en värld utan denna fantastiska instutition. Hjälp till att behålla EMS som den stöttepelare för nytänkande musik den är och har varit sedan 1962.

https://www.skrivunder.com/radda_elektronmusikstudion_ems_-_save_ems_stockholm?a=2

Saintpid is in full swing after a well-deserved vacation!

Recently I’ve discussed True Peak limiting in some different contexts, with an interested client, a friend and an upset discussion on Facebook with mastering people who defend their right to have +3dBTP peaks on material “because it sounds better “… Well … I’ll let them continue to commit misconduct, just leave me out of it so that I can do my job.
As more and more streaming services shift to measuring with True Peak, it will become obvious why handling ISP is important. Today, for example, if Spotify gets a file at say -10LUFS, limited to 0dBFS (dB Full Scale) but with +2.5dBTP (dB True Peak), they’ll reduce the gain about -3 to -4dB (with the loudness setting set at normal). When Spotify eventually switches to True Peak, the same master suddenly will drop -5 to -6dB, so instead of being as loud (or louder) than the average track, it will be quieter. Guess whos phone will start to ring when artists and record companies realize that this is the case.

Back in the days, you created a master for a final media, it could be cassette, CD or vinyl. After a CD was pressed, the mastering engineers responsibility pretty much ended. That’s no longer the case, nowadays you have to make sure it’s up for all kind of post mastering processing. A good master should hold up for both fixed media such as CD or vinyl, but also distribution over the internet, where the audio will both go through loudness normalization and conversion to a new format as well as traditional broadcast. Your master ain’t sacred no more and staying under the True Peak zero is one of many things required by a good master today. When I choose myself, I deliver my masters with -1dBTP. It happens quite often that my clients want a louder master, then they get more compression as well as a file with -0.3dBTP. No matter what they prefer, they will sound just as loud online but the -1dBTP file may sound a bit better. However, the -0dBFS master with True Peaks at +2dB, no matter if it sounds good or not, will be quieter and you don’t want that, do you?!