Ezequiel Morfi and Cana San Martín in Estudio Urbano
- Juan Cana San Martín y Ezequiel Morfi - "Mastering For Everyone"
On both Tuesday July 30th and August 6th, a split two-session presentation was held for Estudio Urbano's series of conferences 'Alta Fidelidad'. Boasting vast experience in the mastering field, engineers Cana San Martín and Ezequiel Morfi took a two-way approach to various topics, one from the technical point of view (lead mainly by San Martín), the other from a more actual real-life situation (Morfi).
Really knowing the acoustics in the studio, the DAW platform to work on, and the monitors to be used was the first thing to talk about. Theory on this included all the different types of speakers configurations, e.g. active and passive, one two or three ways monitor, use of subwoofers and 2.1 and 2.2 systems, and so on.
On day two the speakers rambled on an utterly different matter: software. Questions arose and good practices such as proper down sampling, dithering and DC removal were discussed. Analogue processing, using plugins and which ones to use and how to do it, everything was in the order of the day. A run through all the typical processes to be seen at a mastering session followed, including static and dynamic equalization, broad and multiband compression, limiting, expansion, *artistic* saturation and distortion, soft clipping, reverbs, and M/S processing.
Mention of the loudness war could not be left aside, also referring to the current and new metering methods.
