The process and the differences between normalizing and mastering are often confused. Although it may seem to be the same, it is not.
Mastering can be of crucial importance according to which processes, for example: in musical matters, there are mastering engineers who are dedicated exclusively to that.
That does not mean that we cannot learn or acquire the necessary knowledge to be able to properly use some processing effect or some plugin in an appropriate way to be able to get more out of our audio file.
But you have to keep in mind that this audio processing helps your audio montage, song … sound with more punch, more strength, more energy, have more life.
Is mastering compressed or limited?
Rather those two processes and some more are done.
Its mission is to maintain the same volume amplitude throughout the audio file, that is, it compresses when it has to compress and limits when it has to limit.
I’m going to give a rough example of what manual mastering would be like.
Can you still imagine the sound technician who detects when the signal volume is too high (the singer gets too close to the microphone, shouts …) and lowers the fader. Or the opposite case, when it detects the low volume (the singer moves too far from the microphone, does not speak with enough force …) and raises the fader. Always trying to maintain the same volume amplitude.
I’m going to give you a homemade definition: “lower what is high and raise what is low”.
As before it was an invented example, to do the job of processing the sound we regulate the different parameters available to the “processor” (Mastering is also called “processing” since in the past a device called “processor” was used which comes from “dynamics processor”). These parameters are:
The threshold (threshold): fundamental characteristic of the compressor that represents the point or level from which if the volume of the sound exceeds or lowers it, the dynamics processor is put into operation.
Ratio (Attenuation or Gain Ratio): Defines the amount of attenuation or gain that is applied to the signal. At noise gates the attenuation can be preset so that it really is a mute.
Attack time: This is the time it takes for the signal to attenuate, limit, mute or amplify. In general, slower times work best at low frequencies and fast ones at high frequencies. When processing a signal containing all frequencies, a compromise situation is forced.
To maximize the energy of the signals, particularly in broadcasting applications, there are multiband compressors that divide the spectrum into several bands and apply different times to each.
Release time: It is the opposite of the attack time, that is, the time it takes to go from the state where the processing is running to rest. They are usually longer times than those of attack.
Hold (maintenance time): Specifies the minimum time that processing will take place.
Stereo link (stereo link): With dynamics processors in general when used to process a two-channel (stereo) signal, it is necessary to link the processing action of both channels to happen on both at the same time. Otherwise, the sound image will be confusing and changing from the center to one side or the other.
Automatic: This function allows you to control any of the parameters listed automatically depending on the characteristics of the signal.
By pass (deactivation): Activating it allows you to hear the unprocessed signal, while if it is not activated you hear the processed signal.
Normalization is a process by which the highest peak is sought and reduced or increased (dB) as adjusted. Never pass the 0dB in normalization or mastering, because then it would be itching “clipping”.
If when capturing the sound, the highest peak (in amplitude of volume) is close to 0 dB. Normalization will have no effect. On the other hand, if we process it with the presets of some “Dynamics Processor” effect, it will be noticed that the wave gets fatter where it is thinner and will become thinner where it is thicker
