The Evolution of Mastering as a Music Production Discipline

Anthony Lee Winns Jr. is a respected IT professional who has experience providing support at all organizational levels as a project manager. With a longstanding interest in music, Anthony Lee Winns Jr. enjoys audio recording and production work in his free time. 

One of the fundamentals of bringing together sounds to create songs is mastering, which has its roots in an era of music leading up to the 1940s, when recordings were produced live in the studio and directly transferred to a soft metal alloy or wax disc. This disc was then used to mass produce commercial records at a manufacturing plant. 

By the 1950s, magnetic tape had taken over this function, with elements such as equalization used to improve the sound that reached the end listener. One core function was in balancing the levels between tracks, such that all of the tracks on a record tied together, each within an optimal loudness range.

It was only in the 1970s, with the advent of digital technologies and the digital audio workstation (DAW), that mastering truly came into its own as a distinct discipline from mixing. While there is no definite dividing line between the two stages toward completing a recording, mastering involves a recording professional attuned to various speakers and headphones creating a blend of sounds that avoids jarring elements that keep the listener from enjoying the recording as a whole. It also positions elements such as bass and keys in ways that do not conflict and sound pleasing to the ear, whether on a home system or in a club environment.

Tips to Improve Sound During Music Production

An experienced IT and cybersecurity professional, Anthony Lee Winns Jr. works in Washington, DC. In his free time, Anthony Lee Winns Jr. enjoys learning about the music industry, specifically music production. 

The more technical skills music producers learn, the cleaner and more appealing the music they produce sounds. Much of the fine-tuning of a song occurs during the EQ, or equalization stage. This is when a trained ear can help a producer achieve an optimum sound by adjusting the balance of the frequencies. 

One common problem fixed during EQ is cutting the hissing sound out of high frequencies without making the music sound dull. A professional tip to fix this problem involves using a high-cut filter that has a narrow Q value to remove hiss, without dulling the desired higher-frequency sounds. 

Also, don’t forget to add enough weight for the bass end. A good rule of thumb is to start with a low amount of bass, then add about 10dB until you achieve sound with a nice body but without an audible buzz. After adjusting the bass, experiment with dropping the frequency to half the bass value. For example, if bass is set at 120Hz, drop the frequency to 60Hz, then add a few dB to find a good sound balance.

Normalizing Multiple Audio Tracks during Music Production

Anthony Lee Winns Jr. is a longtime technology project manager who has set in place and maintained complex IT networks. A music aficionado, Anthony Lee Winns Jr. enjoys pursuing music production projects in his free time. 

One of the fundamentals of creating songs that were recorded using multiple tracks centers on normalizing the sound. This involves changing overall volume to meet specific targets and is distinct from compression, which also alters sound dynamics. A common use is to bring a quiet audio file up to the level of a louder file without impacting the dynamic range. 

When there are many audio files at various volumes, normalizing can be essential in matching volumes such that the overall sound is clear and balanced. A track can be unpleasant to the listener if one key element such as drums or bass is too loud or not loud enough. 

One method of normalization is peak volume detection, which boosts every track to the loudest volume possible (up to 0 dBFS in digital production). However, as individual tracks often mix soft sections with peak volume sections, RMS volume detection often provides a better way of ensuring natural sound qualities across a range of audio files. 

When working to create the best music possible, mixers should remember that normalization results in some loss of sound quality and should be used sparingly.

The Certified Information Systems Security Professional Designation

An information technology (IT) project manager with more than a decade of experience, Anthony Lee Winns Jr. possesses a diverse technical background in providing first and second-tier support to end-users on a variety of platforms. Anthony Lee Winns Jr. is also a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), a professional designation for IT technicians that work at the forefront of information security. The designation indicates a professional with the necessary skills and knowledge to design, engineer, implement, and manage information security programs. In addition, it serves as a testament to their commitment to staying ahead of information security threats and new opportunities for hackers.

The International Information System Security Certification Consortium (ISC2) administers the CISSPA program. In order to qualify, IT professionals must possess a minimum of five years of cumulative, full-time paid work experience in two or more of the ISC2 CISSP Common Body of Knowledge’s eight domains. Alternatively, professionals without the necessary experience who pass the CISSP exam will earn the Associate of ICS2 designation and receive six years to accumulate the required work experience.

The exam may, which take up to three hours, consists of 100 to 150 multiple choice and advanced innovative questions. Applicants must receive a score of at least 700 out of 1,000 points to pass.

Transmission Advantages of Fiber Optic Over Copper Cable

From IT network integration to technical infrastructure, Anthony Lee Winns Jr. has extensive experience guiding technology projects. Among Anthony Lee Winns Jr.’s accomplishments has been guiding the fabrication and installation of fiber optic and copper cabling assemblies.

In recent years fiber optic, which is essentially a form of glass, has widely supplanted traditional copper cabling. One major reason is that, while copper works fine for a voice signal, its bandwidth is inherently limited. Multi-mode fiber, however, offers approximately 1,000 times the bandwidth, and travels 100 times the distance, of copper. In addition, copper has significant signal loss at high frequencies, while fiber offers negligible loss.

In terms of speed, copper uses electrons, which travel at a fraction of the speed of light, as a means of transmission. By contrast, fiber optic employs photons, which travel at the speed of light. Fiber optic cables typically enable transmission that is only 31 percent slower than the speed of light.

While fiber optic has traditionally been more expensive than copper, its cost has decreased steadily over the years. Given that fact and its inherent performance advantages, it is now the go-to choice for most data transmission systems.