Yeah I think it's better to do that also but for cash reason I do it on my own. I bring the tracks seperately in logic and mixed it there.personally i always leave mastering to someone who knows what they are doing. i never bother even trying.
KEEPING IT SIMPLE
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paradiddle
- Posts: 512
- Joined: Wed Jul 14, 2004 12:21 am
- Location: mtl
i recently had a maxi out (vynil). i had composed the track on cubase SX, and put the L1 on the master (no EQ, just the L1).
when i arrived with my CD in the mastering studio (that is supposed to be a good one in paris), the enginner listened to it for 5secs, and told me "you've put the L1". well, i HAD put it. the track was not over-compressed, but it sounded almost like released material, IMO.
and as a matter of fact, he engineer left it almost untouched. maybe cutting very low freq (below 30Hz) to give the tracks more room on the rest of the spectrum, but that's it.
so to me, it meant that i can achieve some kind of mastering.
the engineer confirmed it, saying that in electronic music (and i speak about purely electronic stuff, with no 'real' instrument takes), the sound is an inner part of the composition, and it's vey often hard to make some extra mastering, because it may cut some of the creative part involved.
so i guess that mastering can be done at home.
but i'm curious about the 'live' part of mastering as i don't have any experience on it. i still put the L1 on the master out of Live, but more to avoid clipping than to 'masterise'.
as someone wrote, i believe that there is some extra compression on most of the PAs. is it enough? don't know.
when i arrived with my CD in the mastering studio (that is supposed to be a good one in paris), the enginner listened to it for 5secs, and told me "you've put the L1". well, i HAD put it. the track was not over-compressed, but it sounded almost like released material, IMO.
and as a matter of fact, he engineer left it almost untouched. maybe cutting very low freq (below 30Hz) to give the tracks more room on the rest of the spectrum, but that's it.
so to me, it meant that i can achieve some kind of mastering.
the engineer confirmed it, saying that in electronic music (and i speak about purely electronic stuff, with no 'real' instrument takes), the sound is an inner part of the composition, and it's vey often hard to make some extra mastering, because it may cut some of the creative part involved.
so i guess that mastering can be done at home.
but i'm curious about the 'live' part of mastering as i don't have any experience on it. i still put the L1 on the master out of Live, but more to avoid clipping than to 'masterise'.
as someone wrote, i believe that there is some extra compression on most of the PAs. is it enough? don't know.
Another set of speakers and someone elses fresh ears are a good idea. I've heard some stuff my brother got mastered in a pro mastering suite in london recently which, according to a couple of different opinions (mine included), didn't sound too good.
I think you can pull it off yourself (mastering) if you play your mixes on as many different speakers as possible, especially car stereos. Once you've got it right a couple of times and you know from your own experience what you had to tweak, you can get it right a lot of the time yourself.
There are some good analysis plugins around and these can help you see problems like out of phase stuff, if you know what you're doing.
Mixing for vinyl pressing is probably best left to someone who's got it right before though, otherwise you 'll end up with some expensive mistakes.
I think there's a lot of 'emperor wears no clothes' about mastering, it's definately worth having a go at it if you're only mixing for stereos and mp3.
I think you can pull it off yourself (mastering) if you play your mixes on as many different speakers as possible, especially car stereos. Once you've got it right a couple of times and you know from your own experience what you had to tweak, you can get it right a lot of the time yourself.
There are some good analysis plugins around and these can help you see problems like out of phase stuff, if you know what you're doing.
Mixing for vinyl pressing is probably best left to someone who's got it right before though, otherwise you 'll end up with some expensive mistakes.
I think there's a lot of 'emperor wears no clothes' about mastering, it's definately worth having a go at it if you're only mixing for stereos and mp3.
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punka