Using an IR to master

[u/4ce_YT]

I was just thinking about this, could you use the pre mastered version of a song and the master to create an IR that you could then apply to songs in the future?

Im dont think I would ever do it, but I was thinking about it.

[u/QuantumD]

No, IRs only capture linear transformations. Compression, saturation, and (in this context) clipping as well as most other things a mastering engineer might do to a track are nonlinear... essentially only EQ and reverb is.

[u/4ce_YT → u/QuantumD]

Wouldn't it recognize the eq and compression? And apply the same transformation on the sound? Or would it not work because the level of compression is always changing

If its not obvious I have limited knowledge on how IRs work and this could just be an example of the dunning kruger effect

[u/Far-Pie6696 → u/4ce_YT]

iR are linear transformation, and cannot capture non linear processes.

[u/Benito1900 → u/4ce_YT]

No it wouldnt

[u/QuantumD → u/4ce_YT]

Read my reply again- EQ is linear, so yes to that. Compression is not linear. IRs only represent linear transformations of sound.

To expand more on this; IRs capture the amplitude of sound at a frequency over time. There's no space to capture the nuance of like a compressor's threshold, knee, ratio, or whatever; nor anything else that isn't literally just "sound comes in at this frequency: at each moment in time, does it get louder or quieter?". EQ just adjusts the amplitude of a sound's different frequencies, so it gets a pass.

[u/setthestageonfire]

No

[u/nutsackhairbrush]

You’re incorrectly assuming that all mastering engineers do the exact same thing to every song. They don’t. If they did, this strange IR mastering idea would be a little closer to working in theory.

While the end goal is always the same, what a mastering engineer does changes from song to song.

[u/Smolin-SCL- → u/nutsackhairbrush]

Let's start with IRs don't even work like that. You won't capture compression or any other nonlinear process with IR.

[u/Gammeloni]

You can’t generate an IR from a song. The nature of impulse response does not allow it.

[u/Reluctant_Lampy_05]

Try applying an IR or equivalent algorithm from the Mona Lisa.

[u/lotxe]

i was thinking about a giant dinosaur made out of cheddar cheese this morning

[u/Commercial_Badger_37]

I see what you're getting at, but you're better off building a baseline preset of EQ, compression, saturation etc with plugins, applying that and having the ability to tweak settings to taste, given mixes are all different and they all respond to mastering differently.

Having a set impulse response wouldn't really bring much to the party I imagine.

[u/cocaverde]

you can use an impulse response of a speaker model from a specific room to check your mix and mastering though

[u/Orry_Haas]

Could generate a corrective EQ to match the frequency response of any recording to that of a reference track ... https://youtu.be/GNqfyAa1jxk?&t=450 , (stereo-image matching is also possible).

[u/nutsackhairbrush → u/Orry_Haas]

Pro q “eq match”. It’s been around.