Mixing and Mastering
To get a great mix, there is no compromising your monitoring system. As such, Blink features one of the most breathtaking and accurate systems imaginable. Visit and hear it for yourself. This system redefines transparent, dynamic and truthful sound production - not only do you obtain better mixes and more accurate masters, the sound quality is greater on a wider range of systems. Hear for yourself why the major European high-end publication Stereo selected our monitors as their reference system. Find out why our cabling is hailed by Absolute Sound as the best speaker cable ever.
Pro Tools HD Mixing
We believe that the most effective way to mix is by using the power of our new ProTools HD system. Its huge track count and limitless options for effects and signal processing make it far more efficient and sonically superior to a huge mixing console. Just imagine a room full of hundreds of compressors, equalizers, reverbs, and all sorts of other effects from delays to guitar amp modelers. Now imagine those all packed into two high-powered mixing stations, all at your fingertips, without leaving the sweet spot (right between the speakers) and you can see why we mix faster and better than most top of the line conventional mixing facilities. All our mixes are 100 percent recallable, something that gives us and our clients peace of mind. This state of the art approach also allows us to have a much more advanced monitoring system than most studios – with the selection of the finest audio gear in the world and without a bulky console in the way, there is literally nothing between you and the sound. Our monitoring system outperforms even that of the top three mix and master facilities in New England, allowing for much higher levels of refinement. Breathtaking accuracy has its merits.
Logic Platinum Expertise
Having been beta testers for the past six years, we actually contributed to the making of Logic Platinum the product it is today – the leading recording and sequencing program on the market. We were excited to learn from the staff at Emagic, that we were the first studio on the East Coast to work with fiber optics and Logic Platinum - a combination that is also used at Peter Gabriel’s Realworld Studios in England. Blink Music is now capable of running over 200 tracks of audio in combination with unlimited MIDI tracks -on each of our 2 HD stations! Logic Audio Platinum gives us the flexibility, speed and control needed for exceptional mixing. Logic seamlessly integrates audio and midi within the ProTools HD system and allows for incredible freedom with editing and mixing. These choices just aren’t available on any other mixing platform.
Surround Mixing
Enter a whole new realm of sound when you get your record mixed in surround. Feel like you’re sitting in Symphony Hall, or create unreal spaces that will take you to a new experience. Sometimes, new technologies make sense. Our approach in surround mixing is to keep the overall integrity of the music intact, but enhance the listening experience to a whole new level.
In mastering, Blink prepares a professional master CD for mass duplication. You can think of mastering as finishing, polishing, optimizing, and fixing the original mixes for the most impact, emotionally appealing and musically satisfying final result. It is the emphasis on the inherent musical values of a performance, creating musical flow, order, and levels for a thoroughly enjoyable listening experience. A great master sounds excellent on high end stereo systems, in your car, on TV, or through small mini stereo systems. Blink excels far beyond conventional mastering using the unsurpassed technologies of Oxford, GML, Tubetech, Neve, and Sonic Solutions de-noising. This is the time to get a fresh perspective on a mix and clean up any discrepancies in the sound. Every parameter of your recording can be refined: depth, placement, stereo width, dynamic range and level, timbre, noise, and punch. We work with the utmost precision to ensure that every detail is preserved and dramatically enhanced. With two fully automated ProTools HD stations, matching sounds and levels for each cut on a CD project is fast, accurate, and easy.
Dilemma of Mastering
Our enthused production clients asked us how we got into mastering - out of necessity! What we heard happening to our own productions coming back from so-called mastering houses was not satisfying, to be polite. Reverbs had disappeared, dynamics were diminished, and an additional harshness was added that wasn’t there in the first place. In addition to carelessness, we observed another phenomenon: the over-compression of mixes. Blink Music opposes the mindless and common approach of today’s “mastering” - louder is better. Squashing the dynamics out of a recording for the sake of loudness might be impressive at first but will eventually wear off with repeated listening, just as a movie with 120 minutes of gunfire would tire your ears. At Blink, we want recordings to breathe, to hear the reverb tails of instruments, preserve and enhance the original sound stage and intent of the mixing engineer. A captivating dynamic range, impact, and realism is exciting. Ask yourself how the recordings sound that you listen to again and again. There are of course exceptions to this also a few excellent mastering facilities like Gateway Mastering in Maine - but their number is remarkably small. These facilities generally charge between $450 and $600/hour.
Super Fidelity Mastering
We started at Blink applying the same standards of Sonic Excellence that we have for recording and mixing to mastering. Being trained by the best engineers of Teldec, Deutsche Grammophon and EMI, Tim brings the necessary background knowledge to mastering at a world class level. With the help of the new High resolution Protools HD system and top of the line names like Oxford, GML, Tubetech, and Neve, we go beyond the conventional mastering of simple Sonic Solutions stations. But the real key to our success lies in the listening experience and the unmatched super fidelity monitoring system, which is unmatched even in the most expensive mastering facilities. Our monitors and amplifiers are capable of revealing details that get lost in standard mastering facilities. All of our cabling has been installed at the highest levels, ensuring truthfulness and sonic finesse all the way. Producers and labels that have discovered us called us the Most advanced ProTools HD mastering house they have ever worked with.
Mastering Primer
There are many ways to master a CD. However, the recent availability of budget compressors allow even mediocre facilities to master CDs. As you might have guessed, there are huge differences in the results. The ears and experience of the mastering engineer, the associated monitoring system, and mastering tools make all the difference.
The steps in mastering are:
NOISE REMOVAL - Blink restores and improves masters that have too much noise by removing hiss, distortions, clicks, and pops, using Sonic Solutions NoNoise™ and Waves Restoration tools.
EQ-ING - One of the most important steps in mastering is applying just the right amount of equalization to the original mix and knowing what frequencies to alter and which ones to leave alone. Next to compression, this is probably the most crucial step. Blink uses the newest generation equalizers that, unlike older analog gear, won’t alter the phase correlation of your mixes.
COMPRESSION - Compression can hugely alter the perception of a mix, but too much will result in a loud but lifeless and thus boring master. Too little won’t push the track with enough force to the listener, or, as in classical orchestral music, will be simply too much dynamic difference for normal listening situations. The character and sonic signature depends largely on what kind of compressor is being used and what specific settings are being applied. Blink Music has a huge range of state of the art tools to accomplish this in a world class way.
EFFECTS - Sometimes, we use our little trade secrets to create enhancements that vastly improve the original mix. An ambience that wasn’t there in the original recording, a bass signal that couldn’t be heard even with eq-ing and compression, an effect that helps connect the listener to the next part of the song.
EDITING - Track assembly, sequencing, and fading between tracks are done using the editing tools of our ProTools HD stations. Our clients trust our musical expertise and editing skills to create for them a final product that is seamless and captures the musical sensibility of the recording artist.
BURNING - This is the only non-musical stage, the burning of the master CD, usually done at low speed or real-time for accuracy and bit preservation. You will receive one master CD that is included in your booking at the end of the mastering session.
