mastering & compression

[ReakZ]

Ok guys,i've heard mastering & compression are one of most important things in producing,anyone would be willing to show me some examples of tracks BEFORE compressing or mastering or good use of eq & after.
I just wanna see how far u can change stuff with these.. :roll:

[MARKEG]

you just wouldn't regosnise our tracks before mastering.

i really love working this way, cause you don't worry about the complete polished thing until mastering so you can really go to town with some weird and wacked out kick/percussion etc eq's and then record it onto DAT. it's hilarious cause when you come back to it, it sounds bloody awful, but you've got that spontineity you wouldn't have had any other way and that to me is techno ;)

i'l try and dig out something of ours before and after mastering if i get time but i'm a bit pressed mastering new stuff at the mo :)

[machina]

yeah, i agree... mastering can sometimes make a massively dramatic difference even when the original mix and source eq'ing is close to perfect, it is the mastering that makes a track sound warm and polished rather than crap...
the compression side of things is especially important - we generally find that this is by far the most time consuming part of production... it's not unusual to spend less than a day or just a few hours writing the track itself, and then spending days on the compression/mastering...

machina

[MARKEG]

yeah for sure. like i say, i'm in the middle of mastering at the minute and it's taking on average a day per track. a mixture of limiting, compressing and serious eq changes. what you find is, you're trying to bring the track 'forward', but maintaining the volume level of the whole track.

to me, it's a whole different artform to actually doing the track. it's like you're taking a baby dressing it up in the best clothes you can find, so the finished product is sparkling ;)

[MARKEG]

to me, it's a whole different artform to actually doing the track. it's like you're taking a baby dressing it up in the best clothes you can find, so the finished product is sparkling ;)

did i really just say that? :lol:

[disco diva]

to me, it's a whole different artform to actually doing the track. it's like you're taking a baby dressing it up in the best clothes you can find, so the finished product is sparkling ;)

did i really just say that? :lol:

hahaha you sure did!! :clap:

[Debroglie]

Strange thing is I used to spend all my time just making traxx and never thought about mastering until it was done. But now I'm such a engineering minded freak that I sit here and make stuff sound polished and tight as I go and it takes for ever to make one frigen track

Mark thanks for your post cause I think you just made me realize what's been blocking my creative proceedures lately :)

[quote="MARK EG"]you just wouldn't regosnise our tracks before mastering.

[ReakZ]

Yeh i think i understand,i add lots of soundz & then mostly i get lost thinking like "should i start compressing/mastering" or this track has too much soundz so i need to start over"..
thats why i want to hear other ppl examples

[j_s]

yeah, this would be intersting to hear. i've always noticed a reasonable difference between pressed tracks and my own output, but have never known how much of this was down to mastering.....

[herman]

yeah for sure. like i say, i'm in the middle of mastering at the minute and it's taking on average a day per track

Mark do you really spend that long mastering ?? personally i find its just a final polish and tweak so i very rarely spend more than 10-15 minutes on it. be intersted to hear how long others spend on it.

[Zektor]

to me, it's a whole different artform to actually doing the track. it's like you're taking a baby dressing it up in the best clothes you can find, so the finished product is sparkling ;)

did i really just say that? :lol:

Yeah you did. But you're making a huge mistake: baby's tend to spill drinks and babyfood on themselves and vomit on their designer-cloths...what a waste! :lol:

It's good to be raw:

http://www.juno.co.uk/ppps/products/167332-01.htm

Too polished and sparkly isn't always good.

yeah for sure. like i say, i'm in the middle of mastering at the minute and it's taking on average a day per track

Mark do you really spend that long mastering ?? personally i find its just a final polish and tweak so i very rarely spend more than 10-15 minutes on it. be intersted to hear how long others spend on it.

Have to agree with Herman. It's just a final polish and tweak.

Sometimes a track doesn't need extra compression/complete mastering-process.

Too much isn't always a good thing.

When I first started producing, I spend like 90% of the production time on EQ'ing/tweaking/polishing the sounds.

Nowadays I spend like 25% of the time on EQ'ing / mixing and mastering.

[machina]

It probably depends on the type of music you're making - if you're going for a very clean/clinical sound, the time is put into the writing process and the mixdown. If you're going for a more 'unconventional' or overdriven sound where the idea is to have the sounds kind of interact with each other and 'roll' with each other in a way that would make a professional studio engineer kill himself (which applies to a lot of hard, driving techno), then i think the time goes into compression/mastering...

Obviously this is a big generalisation, but a lot of english techno has a more 'compressed' and 'raw' sound to it, whilst some of the mainland european techno has a different, more clinical feel... whatever suits you...

machina

[ReakZ]

Jejeje.. i ment ect. glenn wilson's,dean rodell's or the anxious style

[machina]

Jejeje.. i ment ect. glenn wilson's,dean rodell's or the anxious style

also known as heavy compression style. :D

machina