sending song fade outs to mastering?

[PT]

If I record at 24 bit and provide a 24 bit mix down for mastering, can I do my own song fade outs without compromising the audio quality?

I seem to remember having to use a dither plugin or something when going from 24 bit to 16 bit to make a CD. Is this still the case staying at 24 bit?

[MoreSpaceEcho]

perfectly fine. err on the side of leaving them a little bit long, your ME can finesse the very ends if necessary.

[Waltz Mastering]

If I record at 24 bit and provide a 24 bit mix down for mastering, can I do my own song fade outs without compromising the audio quality?

+1 on what MSE said.

I seem to remember having to use a dither plugin or something when going from 24 bit to 16 bit to make a CD. Is this still the case staying at 24 bit?

I would send the data files at whatever bit depth and sample rate you mixed at. There would be no need to dither...Dither only when reducing bit depth.

[PT]

Perfect! I have two songs for a client that need specific fade outs. One is a really long fade out. The other is a fade to hide some less-than-awesome playing toward the end of a song. No one will be attending the mastering session (it's cheaper) so I want to do the fades beforehand.

[MASSIVE Mastering]

perfectly fine. err on the side of leaving them a little bit long, your ME can finesse the very ends if necessary.

Word (to the peeps). The "long side of perfect" is - well, perfect.

[Marc Alan Goodman]

Yep. Or you can just include notes on where you want the fade to start and end and let the mastering engineer handle it. The only issue with doing fades yourself is that you may be leaving some noise floor that the mastering engineer will then have to manipulate another fade over in order to hide it. However since most final fades are done in the box nowadays it's not really an problem worth worrying about.

What they said. Long side of right.

[@?,*???&?]

perfectly fine. err on the side of leaving them a little bit long, your ME can finesse the very ends if necessary.

The proper terminology for this is 'chasing the fade'.

Used in a sentence, it would be like this:

"Your mastering engineer can chase the fades if he/she has to."

[MoreSpaceEcho]

[cjmnash]

i still consider fades as a creative aspect of a mix; so i take care of them all (by hand) and do keep them on the long side too. good call guys.

my goal is to win a grammy for "best fade".

hell yeah.

-chris
www.welcometo1979.com

[jgimbel]

my goal is to win a grammy for "best fade".

Signature-worthy.

[ott0bot]

my goal is to win a grammy for "best fade".

Signature-worthy.

yes that rules.


long fades to me are one of the best dang thing you can do to a song with no proper ending. and since my songwriting and arranging skills are subject to lapses of judgement, i use them often.

There are so many songs I'd love to fade out early where the song has basically lost it's momentum and they players need to call it a day, but continue to dick around and kick there amps over and generally make a ruckus (damn you pavement). I've done a few edits myself on these songs before throwing them on the old ipod. But also there are some moments of magic sometimes too.

So my suggestion.....leave it long, and the ME make a call. If you feel it's too soon or too quick then have them do another pass with the adjustment.

[jgimbel]

long fades to me are one of the best dang thing you can do to a song with no proper ending. and since my songwriting and arranging skills are subject to lapses of judgement, i use them often.

There are so many songs I'd love to fade out early where the song has basically lost it's momentum and they players need to call it a day, but continue to dick around and kick there amps over and generally make a ruckus (damn you pavement). I've done a few edits myself on these songs before throwing them on the old ipod. But also there are some moments of magic sometimes too.

Amen. I was talking to a teacher of mine in art school one time and he said "it's such a cop out when songs fade out, like they just weren't creative enough to make up an ending." He was someone whose opinion I somewhat respected, to the extent at least that I'd generally trust him with things until I found a reason not to. It didn't take me long to find a handful of songs that a fading out ending is absolutely perfect. And hey even sometimes it's true that you're not sure what to do so you try a fade out, and that can be perfect too. I was glad it wasn't a situation where I found it hard to prove him wrong (subjectively, of course).

[drumsound]

I actually prefer to leave fades until the mastering session so that I can hear them in context to the next song on the record.

Long fade can be super fucking cool.

Scott-you made me laugh again!

[crow]

I usually leave fading for the ME, but when neither I nor the band can attend the mastering session, I put all the songs in the DAW and do a mock-up of the final song order/spacing/fades, so the clients can put in their two cents in person. then I export the mockup order as a single audio file and add it in to what goes to mastering, so the ME can just look at the mockup and match it. It either works well or the ME I use is too polite to tell me otherwise.

[@?,*???&?]

Another perspective on this would be to consider what the master format is. Digital? or analog?

When I'm mixing to tape, I would definitely keep tape hiss between tracks. In the old days as they'd run each reel down in sequence and take the gap that was on the assembled master reel as 'creative input', then there would be no 'chasing the fades'. What happened during the mix was gospel. Now in the days of digital where you're going to digital black between songs in sequence, it really doesn't matter who does the fade.

Two thoughts on fades:

1. They can be creative and can affect the experience of listening to the sequence of songs on an album.

2. They may or may not be a cop-out when it comes to band performance. I've seen it weigh both ways in the studio.