Mauricio Gargel Audio Mastering Studio - Picture credits: Dani Gurgel
As a mastering facility, you must be able to handle material coming in on different DAW files. Pro Tools is ubiquitous for video and film projects, but Reaper is also very popular in Brazil. Some CD titles still come in on SADiE. Mauricio adds; “I am looking at Pyramix now because I like the idea of being able to do everything in one place. I can do mixing, sample rate conversion and export the final ADM with the metadata. I love Reaper’s flexibility with routing, but I can’t do the metadata. I don’t love Pro Tools even though I used to teach it, but it is so much used in Brazil, I can’t avoid it. I am learning Pyramix now as I only recently had time to investigate.”
Looking to the future, Mauricio thinks he may add two more speakers which are now from PMC for the main front and Neumann everywhere else. The only other possible investment could be in conversion tools if they become available. He does not want to depart from the listening room concept and become a full mixing studio, but if is demanded, he may consider it. The other difficulty he sees moving forward is quality control. On the client side, he sees confusion around the differences between stereo, binaural and multichannel. There is an expectation that a full Atmos track would be the same as the stereo in terms of delays, reverb and other parameters. This is clearly nonsense as there is a world of difference in how it sounds as well as not accounting for the artistic changes that can be incorporated. Also, loudness has become chaotic with a misunderstanding that immersive does not need to have the dynamics crushed as has become the norm in stereo. Consequently, some Atmos tracks were very loud and not authentic to the music. “It doesn’t make sense to reference to stereo which is the format of yesterday. In the future our children and grandchildren might only listen to a multi-speaker system and will be disappointed if the results have been compromised by too much compression or unadventurous mixing.”
Mauricio Gargel with Anubis - photo credits: Dani Gurgel
For more information: mauriciogargel.com