Separation Mastering (John Vestman)

[msmith92]

Has anybody used this mastering house or is anybody familiar with it?

http://johnvestman.com/

[msmith92]

Also, I am curious to know if anybody has tried mastering with separations before. I guess you would need to use DP for that vs a program like Peak.

[David Polich]

I've met John - he's in Orange County CA. He's been a mastering engineer for
years. Yes, he's an excellent ME and although I haven't personally hired him,
I know a few people who have and they have all been very happy with his work.

What you would do for "separations" (stems) is create real-time mixdowns of
groups of instruments or vocals, AFTER you have done what you think is a good mix. Don't change anything about levels or automation...for example, a stem of just drums would be the first thing you'd want to create, so you'd take all your other tracks except drums "offline" in DP, then create a new stereo track with a new input bus, assign the drum tracks output to that bus, and run a real-time mixdown, starting from bar 1 beat 1 tick 1 to wherever the last of the drums' audio is.

There are two ways to go with effects in this scenario. You may want to keep
the effects (such as reverb or delay) in your drum track stem, so in that case you'd assign your reverb and delay aux tracks to the same bus as the
mixdown track. If you don't do this, then the ME will have to create a new set of aux sends and effects at his end. John will do that, but I think it adds to the cost of your mastering session. Personally I just print the stems with effects.

[msmith92]

Thanks for the input. I'm not a ME and I've always spent cash on local "mastering" to be done and I was a little worried about going out of my area.

I actually have everything set up to go. I had the drums going to an aux with their effects like you said and then did the bass, vocals to their aux and guitars etc.

Then I set up 5 stereo tracks and assigned a bus input to each track with the 5th track designated as the "full mix" track.

I went back to the aux tracks and added 2 sends and sent those to their respective tracks and each to the full mix track.

I then recorded everything in real time instead of bouncing.

That seemed like the best route to me?

[FMiguelez]

... so you'd take all your other tracks except drums "offline" in DP, then create a new stereo track with a new input bus, assign the drum tracks output to that bus, and run a real-time mixdown, starting from bar 1 beat 1 tick 1 to wherever the last of the drums' audio is.

Great explanation, David.

Your suggestions work great (and that's what I'd do too) AS LONG AS there's nothing in the master bus of the mix, correct? Some people like "mixing into the compressor" (which is in the master bus) as part of the mix sound.
In this case, the stems wouldn't translate accurately, yes?

So stems are not an option for such a scenario, correct?

[msmith92]

That's correct about the master. I had a reverb on a the master for one song and I had to move it to an actual aux to get it to print.

[toodamnhip]

I mix heavily into iZotope and various compressors when I mix. My mastering engineer is a world class grammy winner and always loves my mixes. There have been times when I bring him a mix that is almost black because it is totally using every db of waveform. This is something you can do if brave (or stupid..lol) enough, and if you know enough about mastering to mix and "1/2" master at the same time. My mastering guy just sweetens some EQ here and there and does little compression as I have already made that decision,

All of that said, I have printed stems for live shows, even though they don;t translate perfectly due to the compressors being “hit” differently when being bounced one section at a time.
When combining the stems, there is sometimes an ADDED sound that IS nice. A sound where things sum up even bigger than the original mix. There are of course problems such as kicks possibly popping out of the mix when bounced separately..etc.

The sound of the combined stems has lead me to want to experiment with a second level of mixing wherein I
A)-Finish a mix as well as possible using master bus compression.
B)- Stem it out
C)- make additional mix adjustments to compensate for any parts that have changed such as pulling down the kick etc.
D)- Combining the “adjusted” stems a second time to make a NEW BIGGER mix.

Unfortunately, I have never gone to these lengths due to time and budget constraints. But theoretically, the idea has intrigued me for some time.

[msmith92]

I dont have the freedom to mix with a comp on the master.

Mainly because if the mix is the best i can do, why not let the ME do the comping?

I mean...if i add an ssl comp to the master...itll sound "better", but wouldnt the killer gear that..say...vestman has + ears be much better?

[David Polich]

... so you'd take all your other tracks except drums "offline" in DP, then create a new stereo track with a new input bus, assign the drum tracks output to that bus, and run a real-time mixdown, starting from bar 1 beat 1 tick 1 to wherever the last of the drums' audio is.

Great explanation, David.

Your suggestions work great (and that's what I'd do too) AS LONG AS there's nothing in the master bus of the mix, correct? Some people like "mixing into the compressor" (which is in the master bus) as part of the mix sound.
In this case, the stems wouldn't translate accurately, yes?

So stems are not an option for such a scenario, correct?

Well, you can put whatever you want on a stem or master fader. No set
rules, just remember that you can't "undo" it once the stem or master mix
is recorded. I've never met an ME who wanted anything printed with a bus
compressor or anything else.

I do all my own mastering these days because I don't have any money to
pay ME's, nor do my pitifully poor clients. I still don't claim to be
an ME by any stretch. Lately, I have been putting UAD's Ampex ATR-102 on the
master fader because it just seems to make the mix more coherent and "glued
together", more so than any bus compressor I've ever tried. Then I export the mix out and load it into Peak and use Izotope
Ozone 5 followed by Slate FG-X for the mastering.

[ghobish]

Has anybody used this mastering house or is anybody familiar with it?

http://johnvestman.com/

While it's obvious that Mr. Vestman is a front line mastering engineer, I have to say that his "separations" method appears to be not fundamentally different from stem mastering, but rather a well-defined refinement of it.