Reddit reviews Mastering Audio, Third Edition: The Art and the Science

omg it's fate! hello fellow duck <33

1. there are some awesome books if you want to start learning about mixing and mastering:
   
   Audio Engineering 101
   
   Mastering Audio, The Art and the Science
   
   Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio
   
   ​
   
   those are a great place to start! the weird thing about mixing and mastering is that it's simultaneously complicated and very, very simple - in my experience the strongest engineers often use the most basic tools, they just have a very in-depth understanding of how they work and how to wield them effectively. don't get frustrated if it's not easy right away - i have been producing and engineering for a really really freaking long time and i am JUST starting to feel super confident with mixing and mastering. it takes dedication and patience but it is soooooo rewarding! you should totally do it!
   
   
2. i got to go to australia on my first international headline tour last year and it was SO COOL
   
   
3. well my favorite kind of dog is all dogs, but also my dogs because theyre my babies. i have a 100 lb staffy/great dane mix who lives with me in LA, and a 13 lb chihuahua/terrier/potato mix who lives with my dad in san francisco

There are lots of good articles and videos on the concepts involved in mixing and mastering (maybe too many, it can start to feel a little overwhelming lol). Here are a couple of links that are short intros into the topics... and yes, mixing and mastering are two completely different things.
Mixdowns
Mastering
More stuff here from the same writer: http://innerportalstudio.com/guides/

There's a fantastic book called Mastering Audio: The Art and the Science by Bob Katz. He's pretty much the High Anointed Guru on the topic. I think you could find it as PDF, most likely from shady sources, but this is something you will want by your side as a physical book. Probably WAY more detailed than you'll need right now, but what I found helpful was going through it, coming across a concept I wasn't familiar with, and doing some research on that topic. The Mixing Engineer's Handbook by Bobby Owsinski is also very detailed, excellent, and highly rated. I think you can find it in PDF as well, but again this is something you'll probably want on your desk. And I really recommend buying any book to support the authors!

Of course, THE book on mastering, the bible: Mastering Audio: The art and the science by mastering engineer Bob Katz.

In the book Mastering Audio by Bob Katz, or separately from Bob Katz's website.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0240818962/

https://www.digido.com/product/carnegie-hall-chart/

If you wanna get good at mastering, you're starting down a rabbit hole. I'm not an expert. I can't answer your questions. But the best place to start would be Bob Katz's Mastering Audio. That'll give you the groundwork of mastering.

Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio
http://www.amazon.com/Mixing-Secrets-Small-Studio-Senior/dp/0240815807

Mastering Audio
http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Audio-Science-Bob-Katz/dp/0240818962/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1425940414&sr=1-1&keywords=bob+katz+mastering

Some of these might be ok. But this book was personally recommended to me by Chris Lord-Alge when I was a novice engineer. I highly recommend.

Mastering Audio - Bob Katz

One of the best books about ever:


https://www.amazon.com/dp/0240818962/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_JWnJAb9FGWEFM


3rd edition improves the readability btw.

Edit: grammar.

You are not correct with your descriptions of wave vs mp3. The sampling rate refers to the number of samples per second, and the bit depth refers to the length of the word being recorded. File format has nothing to do with this. Redbook audio CDs, or more commonly called Compact Discs, could encode no more than 44.1kHz 16bit. Eventually we started seeing higher res audio, 48kHz, 96kHz, etc...

MP3 is a codec used to take that raw collection of samples and make them take up less space, at the expense of audio frequency response.

There are indeed things you should be doing before you upload to an online service, or you let them do it for you. The types of format conversion, leveling, and dithering are purely automatic with no regard given whatsoever to audio quality. You are much better understanding these processes and doing them yourself to deliver the audio to the website's native format, or in other words, what it will end up as anyway. This way, in theory, the website's automatic processes are bypassed and your audio is left unaffected by such crude methods.

A good book for this is by a dude named Bob Katz. It's called "Mastering Audio: The Art and the Science"

https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Audio-Science-Bob-Katz/dp/0240818962/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1484723077&sr=8-1&keywords=Bob+Katz

This book is really great for mixing. Currently making my way through it. It is very dense and thorough


This book has been recommended to me a lot for mastering. A very good producer told me this was the standard for wanting to learn proper mastering techniques. I haven’t read it yet

A few purchases I made recently after few days of researching and asking for recommendations.

Mike Stavrou - Mixing With Your Mind

Rick Snoman - Dance Music Manual, 3rd Edition

Bob Katz - Mastering Audio: The Art and the Science

Bobby Owsinski - The Mixing Engineers Handbook: 4th Edition


Edit: ...and I just checked out the ableton book recommended by /u/NeiloMac and now it's on its way.

Modern Recording Techniques for actual audio. Professor was a wealth of information, so we used a lot of handouts, but he did give us a recommended reading list:

Assistant Engineer's Handbook

Mastering Audio

Master Handbook of Acoustics

personally, i found having a copy of Practical Electronics for Inventors laying around super useful, as it explains circuits and what different diagram symbols mean and how to build basic circuits - awesome if for some reason you need to troubleshoot a piece of gear or you're just curious about what's going on under the hood

For Mastering, I hear Bob Katz book "Mastering Audio" is a must read. Its on my to-read list

https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Audio-Third-Art-Science/dp/0240818962/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1540575272&sr=8-1&keywords=bob+katz

These books were invaluable to me:
https://www.amazon.com/Dance-Music-Manual-Tools-Techniques/dp/0415825644/ref=as_sl_pc_qf_sp_asin_til?tag=dimitridealen-20&linkCode=w00&linkId=6e883bdc057896253093f8e054c72c99&creativeASIN=0415825644

https://www.amazon.com/Mixing-Secrets-Small-Studio-Presents/dp/0240815807/ref=as_sl_pc_qf_sp_asin_til?tag=dimitridealen-20&linkCode=w00&linkId=9e884653f74a627e4c84ece7550dfa1b&creativeASIN=0240815807

https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Audio-Science-Bob-Katz/dp/0240818962/ref=as_sl_pc_qf_sp_asin_til?tag=dimitridealen-20&linkCode=w00&linkId=c808c7581697392d615117dd9b96ec07&creativeASIN=0240818962


https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Idiots-Guide-Arranging-Orchestration/dp/1592576265/ref=as_sl_pc_qf_sp_asin_til?tag=dimitridealen-20&linkCode=w00&linkId=e16959ecc585f52445a79cb70f6fc52c&creativeASIN=1592576265

https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Idiots-Guide-Art-Songwriting/dp/1615641033/ref=as_sl_pc_qf_sp_asin_til?tag=dimitridealen-20&linkCode=w00&linkId=f587c782544a93ca1c853f973da25f0d&creativeASIN=1615641033

A rule of thumb is that mastering will makes wonders on a good mix and ruin a bad one.
The science of mastering as described from Bob Katz in his book , takes only minimal effort to make a usually good mix to sound great in almost every setup, from moms radio to high end system.

While he clearly states that the received matterial isn’t always perfect (sometimes even from very good professional engineers) there are few tricks to help with that. Unfortunately distortion isn’t one of them. Despite the evolution of music technology today.
If something can help you here is Izotope RX7.

If you want a stellar result you have and should re-record, if you believe in your track. I think it’s one way, in the other hand if you just want it for you and your fiends there some restoration that can be done to help given the size of distortion but I strongly advice you against. It’s always a bad image for what you do even if you have to present it to your friends.

We can only talk in general if we don’t hear what’s the amount of distortion, because in my experience it’s always more than that. (Usually squashed elements that sounds lifeless and a lot more “amateurities”).