Mastering... an abstract concept?

[AcidTrash]

Surely as long as it doesn't clip and you trust your ears are telling you it sounds right then mastering is all academic? Surely the tweaks you make as you produce your track is the mastering part of it?

If I understand it correctly mastering is the process of making your track soud like what someone else says it should sound like.

Run some ideas past me. What do we mean by mastering here?

[Mirsha]

Or mastering is a process which a good track is adapted to sound the same or more enhanced when put to vinyl. Bear in mind the sound characteristics changes from a vinyl, at the outer rim treble (or bass, I can never remember) is slightly distorted and near the spindle the bass (or treble) is distorted. On a good system I've heard it say you can really hear the difference.

So a good mastering engineer will take this into account and modify the sound output to fit a vinyl better and produce a superior sound rather than just a straight to vinyl press.

So if you are just going to release stuff on mp3's or whatever it's a bit pointless.

[dirty_bass]

Mastering isn`t just a vinyl only process.
It`s an art unto itself.
It`s adding the final polish and sheen to a finished mix, giving it extra prescence and compressing it in a way, that`ll make it sound good on anything.

It`s very hard to master your own stuff effectively, as you are so involved with the track, and will get precious over parts.
An outside ear is good to make the best of what is there.

you trust your ears are telling you it sounds right then mastering is all academic?

Couldn`t be further from the truth.

As I`ve moved into learning effective mastering I`ve found it is a very deep subject, and it takes a while to master it, as it`s mainly down to the experience of your ears.
A good master will turn a good track, that isn`t quite pro, or releasable. Into a releasable and pro sounding track.

[BRADLEE]

ha ha well I'm going to give it a shot myself now that I have a few new plugins waiting for me...but if anyone else wants to give one of my tunes a shot, be my guest. I have no skills yet in the mastering/eq'ing department....LOL

[MARKEG]

i find mastering the most fun aspect of making music. but it really is bringing all your experience into play to make that crap track sound good. i'll sit for hours mastering tracks and the results will get worse and worse, and worse. i find the best way to master is to go into the studio with a totally fresh head. you haven't heard the track for months and you bang it on and it's like - WOW that's so obvious. mid eq goes up, hi's go down, limiter goes on, compressor kicks in bang bang bang and you're like 'holy ***!!'.

the key is quickness and the only way you'll be quick is if you do it like this in my book. it's like putting everything you've learnt into play in a 100m race ;)

[Basil Rush]

Yeah, Mark's hit the nail on the head there, get out of bed, eat breakfast, have a cup of coffee, hit play on your track for a short bit, hit stop, make all the decisions, don't listen endlessly.

Dig up whatever your best EQ is and the tastiest compressor, set 'em up, hit play, make some decisions. If it ain't immediately obvious stuck on three other records (at the same volume you've been listening to your track - very important) and have another shot.

If you have to faff around with the track editing or something do it with the volume turned down a lot so you don't blast yourself to death while you perfect that last minute arrangement tweak you've just thought of.

But if you've got the mix right really there shouldnt' be much to do at this stage ... there's an awful lot of fuss made about the best way to master a track whereas, and I'm sure it's been said a million times before here, but the mix is the thing where most of the problems should be fixed.

By the time you come to master something it should be honing perfection rather than fixing flaws.

Mixing properly and reatively quickly is also a shit load easier when you've just got up and you've not been in the studio for hours.

[fatcollective]

i was once told by a very respected dj/producer:

"Make ur desk light up like a christmas tree"
im still workin on this method, but it seems to work for me so far!!!

[slavestudios]

i LAWAYS keep every track on a cd rom as my production is 100% pc based now.

i work in Acid, so as i finish a track i burn te arrangement & samples on a data disc...

so, if it need tweaked later, its all there.

i prefer to get the buzz down quick & tidy the edges the next day. then its on to the next track.

if a particular demo gets noticed, i'll fish out the disk, copy the file & open up Acid again & there it all is.... schweeet


thought thi suits me down to the ground, it may not be the answer for others.


i go back to old tracks & try new things ive learned & almost re-master old trax with new knowledge, then set up the new master & the original. the differences at times can be obscene :lol:


but i do think no amount of polishing can turn a turd into a picec of gold. if the track was shit, its gonna stay shit. imo of course ;)

[Ritzi Lee]

Maybe some of you will be surprised,
but now if i master my tracks, it's just
to know wich frequencies in your EQ you have to cranck up,
or cut down. And dependent on the sounds you use,
it will always sit in the same frequency range for each band you use.

No need for compressing / limiting at all.
Just simple EQ'ing.

So what i did, i saved a standard mix snapshot in my 01V for this purpose.
And it works fine! The next morning with fresh ears mixing of your sounds. It wouldn't take me more then 10 / 15 minutes to get it done. And after that, just enjoy the amazing shine and dynamics. hehe....

[Mattias Fridell (emb)]

The key to good mastering for me is coffee, and that´s the truth
My number one rule is to cut the LF from below 40 and down, all the way.

Is there anyone else using the L2 Maximizer on the master in a mastering process? If not, try it out.

[Ritzi Lee]

The key to good mastering for me is coffee, and that´s the truth
My number one rule is to cut the LF from below 40 and down, all the way.

Is there anyone else using the L2 Maximizer on the master in a mastering process? If not, try it out.

Yes I always do this.
But the main mistake most people make is to cranck down the L2 fader so that its very compressed.

I'm just using it to slightly keep it on the -1 / 0 dB area. :)

[Agility]

The key to good mastering for me is coffee, and that´s the truth
My number one rule is to cut the LF from below 40 and down, all the way.

Is there anyone else using the L2 Maximizer on the master in a mastering process? If not, try it out.

I use the L3 MultiMaximizer. :love:

At mastering i use the Waves Lin EQ, basicly just to cut the low end rumble and some of the high end and boost in certain bits to make it sound cleaner.. Like said, your mix should be good before you master it, So you wouldn't really need to use a lot of EQ if it was good. :lol: Then onto the L3! :)

So if you are just going to release stuff on mp3's or whatever it's a bit pointless.

How do you get that?

[RDR]

Being honest im still having trouble learning the mastering process. So my comments probably arent all that relevant.

i will say that i agree with mark that the mastering process should be seperate from the the mixingdown and creative process. Catching the buzz is important when creating a track and a fresh pair of ears is useful for EQing and making the track listenable.

Using a great EQ and multi-band compressor sparingly seems to work for me. However...

I still have a long way to go (possibly forever more..) before i can be happy with my ability to master for different formats, there is just so much to learn and getting my ears "into the right mode" is most definately a slow process and one that i think is probably only gained through experience and practice.

[tocsin]

Mastering is more complex than making it sound good to your ears. Ideally, it should be about having your mix sound as good as you can make it while also sounding consistent on multiple different set ups. There's a good chance that a track you mix by ears only may sound quite different on other speaker setups. When I'm concerned, I generally give it a listen on my studio monitors, my headphones, my home stereo system, and then my car. If it sounds pretty much the same on all of the above and the parts I wanted to stand out do so on each, then I call it a day.

[Mattias Fridell (emb)]

The key to good mastering for me is coffee, and that´s the truth
My number one rule is to cut the LF from below 40 and down, all the way.

Is there anyone else using the L2 Maximizer on the master in a mastering process? If not, try it out.

Yes I always do this.
But the main mistake most people make is to cranck down the L2 fader so that its very compressed.

I'm just using it to slightly keep it on the -1 / 0 dB area. :)

Thats´s rigth, people always overuse the Tresholdfader on the L2.

And is THE L3 released??? I didn´t know

[loopdon]

yeah, the l3 has been around for some time ;)

[Mattias Fridell (emb)]

Holy Hell, how could i´ve missed it? Must be to much coffe !

Back to topic; It´s not only the low sub i cut out from the mix, it´s also the sharp 1Khz (cut it by -2dB or something like that) , I hate that Freq, and still i forgot to remove it from the "Confrontation" track on AAR4: (Silent Witness ep).
And I am ready to die for my big mistake.

[audioinjection]

i dont think good mastering can be done with plugins imo

if i had the decent hardware, i would do it myself

[Evil G]

i dont think good mastering can be done with plugins imo

if i had the decent hardware, i would do it myself

there is a lot of hype and misinformation about, but the non-linearities introduced by good hardware really do make it sound better. our ears work in a similar way to our eyes, in that something moving against a background is easier to detect than something that doesn't move. the very slight movement in the sound that is introduced by hardware makes the sounds come alive, so to speak, without having to actually be louder.

of course, if the noise introduced by the hardware is too great, it will spoil the effect. hence the outrageous prices for good hardware compressors and eqs.

[DJZeMigL]

keep a ready 2 master wavelab.. just record the setting on the master plug in slots.. have it all bypassed so u can quickly hone on what u need...

Waves Lin eq .. (some low end cut bellow 35 Khz), Basslane, waves linear broadband, C4 or similar, waves linear broadband EQ, L3 or similar ... that sould b all u need for most cases...

If u got that ready u can esily activate the plug u need .. also keep settings or repeated stuff..

Makes the process quick and more intuitive...

I can't stress it enought... Do the best Mastering "at the mixing stage"... if u find something is wrong but u can go back, correct it in the mix...



PS - don't go one notch bfore yer speakers complain on a certain frequency, make sure they can play loud without complaining... after all yer mix should sound good on as many systems as possible and not just on yer speakers...


PS 2 - Mix & master at low volume... when yer almost donne play it lound and make sure the bass comes clean and balanced... Avoid tinitus

Z