Mastering and Deep Editing, or How to Bake a Cake Through Music

In the course of mixing and mastering my latest creation, a cover of The Flamin' Groovies' "Shake Some Action," I realized anew that the Zoom R24's mastering presets are woeful, and only deep editing will salvage them. (See February's post for a full critique.)

As I noted back in February, mastering a song is kind of like icing a cake. To further the analogy, you want to apply the right icing—e.g., chocolate icing on a chocolate cake, not strawberry-peach-mint—in the right amount, and whatever you do should enhance the cake's inherent good qualities, not fundamentally alter them. The R24's presets, without exception, fail on all three counts.

Of the unit's 20 presets, 18 are so abysmal as to be useless even as starting points for editing. Two are marginal. Continuing with the cake metaphor, the built-in presets give you way too much strawberry-peach-mint icing on what was supposed to be a chocolate cake and they'll change your cake into cornbread. You're left with a monstrosity that sounds nothing like your original mix.

I've tried editing the marginal presets (14 Clarify and 20 Maximizr, for the record). Unfortunately, I'm groping in the dark. The parameters are named such that it's impossible to set EQ and compression the way you would in a DAW. I can adjust things like "Mix High," "Sense Mid," "Xover Lo" and so on, but don't know what exactly it is I'm cutting or boosting. I have only my ears as a guide. Anyway, I've toned down Maximizr so it's not quite so crazy with the level boost and squashing, but still haven't achieved the desired result, which is a subtle enhancement of my mix.

Initial experiments with Clarify have been more promising. In its original form, Clarify sucks up your bass and low mids and adds a harsh, brittle high end, almost like a transistor radio. In other words—icky kiwi-fruit icing, too much of it, and it changes your chocolate cake into shepherd's pie. I've dialled down a few settings and subtly boosted others, and after A/B'ing my untreated mix with the modified preset, I think I'm close to what I've been after all along: a subtle enhancement. In other words, a dash of high-quality chocolate icing on a chocolate cake, bringing out le gâteau's chocolatey goodness.

If you own a Zoom R24 and want to try this out yourself, here's precisely what I did. My changed values are in bold, in brackets; if a value isn't listed, I left it as is.

Mastering Preset 14 Clarify - Vern's Modification

3Band Comp

Xover Lo: 200 Hz (125 Hz)
Sense Mid: 5 (8)
Sense Low: 4 (9)
Mix Low: -2 (1)

Normalizer

Normalizer: 2 (4)

3Band EQ

Bass: -1 (1)
Middle: 0 (1)
Treble: 0 (1)

Dimension/Reso

Type: None (Dimension)
Rise1: Off (6)
Rise2: Off (6)

Total

Patch Lvl: 25 (20)
ZNR: 10 (Off)

This edit was then saved as a new preset: 22 V Clear. Further tweaking might be necessary, but now I've got a mastering preset that broadly does what it's supposed to—add a level boost, a little brightness and some subtle compression to my mix. And my chocolate cake is still a chocolate cake!