  We present technical details of an analysis of pseudo-scalar data from a QCD
simulation with staggered fermions. The data were obtained close to the
physical point with an inverse lattice spacing of about 3 GeV, and $N_f=2+1+1$.
We compare different methods of extracting effective masses and decay constants
in lattice units. The results of several correlated and uncorrelated fitting
methods are compared, both on the simulated data set, and on a synthetically
generated data set.
