Master songs individually or all together in an album/EP?

[purpleduck]

In order to make a consistent-sounding, volume and everything, album or EP of music, I’ve seen that people master all the tracks in the album together, basically applying the same mastering processing to all the tracks. Do I understand correctly?

This puzzles me. What if some tracks of the album were previously mastered and released as singles? Do they get re-mastered starting from the un-mastered track?

I always thought that some music, especially electronic music, has some heavy mastering processing, tailored to the track, that changes its sound remarkably and not subtly. Re-mastering it would mean changing the sound of the song. Am I under a wrong impression? Do some artists master each track and then apply further common processing to all the tracks in the album or EP? Or is mastering always that subtle? What about compilations of songs from different albums...I guess they all were mastered on their own and then all they did for the compilation was adjusting the volume of all tracks to the same level and perhaps some slight EQ or compression.

Shouldn’t mastering be tailored to each specific track? What if a track needs a different mastering EQ than another? Yet this would make it inconsistent with the other songs in the album. So far I have only mastered individual tracks, the idea that I would apply the same mastering processing to different songs baffles me

[Shift Gorden]

I guess it depends on your mastering philosophy, mate.

Sometimes mastering is used to give all the tracks on the album a cohesive vibe - so processing helps unify everything. Sometimes mastering an album is purely practical and less creative - just to ensure everything is at a similar volume and there is nothing jumping out for the wrong reasons.

My guess is, if stuff has been mastered already then album mastering will be purely practical.

Tarakith and some other of the mastering minded folks here will likely have some good thoughts.

[Tarekith]

In general, yes mastering is usually done to each song individually and not to all of them as a whole. When mastering for an album, you just keep in mind that all songs are for the same album and attempt to give them a cohesive processing so no tracks standout as sounding different. In practice, most musicians don't write songs that sound drastically different from each other in terms of tonal balance, so this is not as hard as it sounds.

For compilations and situations where you're combining tracks that were written by different people or with different mastering engineers, you just try and do your best to get them to sound similar given what you have. Sometimes you can ask for the mixdowns again to remaster them, or sometimes you just need to master the new tracks so they match the older, pre-mastered tracks as best you can. It really depends on the songs and situations, there's no one way to approach this.

Is mastering for electronic music drastically changing the songs? Again, it depends on the person doing the mastering and what they are trying to achieve. I've been mastering other people's music for over 16 years now, and 95% of the time an EQ and limiter are my main tools. So it doesn't have to be complex processing to get a very good end result. In geneal I find that most "mastering tutorials" tell you to apply WAY more processing that you probably need, especially if you're the one who wrote and mixed the tracks in the first place.

Happy to answer any questions or clarify if you need, just ask.

[purpleduck]

Happy to answer any questions or clarify if you need, just ask.

Yes, thanks. When musicians deliver their audio to mastering engineers, have they applied anything on the master channel of their track at all? Completely clean or is there usually something there -- some glue compression? Does it make any sense to give the engineer a glue-compressed track that he will then re-glue? I don't like the idea of applying processes again and again, I like to keep everything as simple as possible. I especially hate the idea of re-compressing, as compression takes away the dynamics. I want dynamic detail in my music.

Think of some electronic music that has a very characteristic sound: I say Ed Banger records stuff and Royksopp. Do you think their "trademark sound" is delivered through mixing (point at which I would think a lot of the magic, especially on Royksopp, comes from the usage of a certain high quality analog desk and saturating tape effects) or anything that concerns mastering?

Could the "magic sound" of Royksopp be due to tape master processing rather than mixing?

I want my music to sound "digital yet warm and organic". Yeah, I need an analog mixer, but it's expensive. I'm looking into saturation and analog simulation plugins that simulate mixing consoles, indeed. Am I on the right track?

The simple question is: is that kind of sound achieved via mixing or mastering? I tend to believe the first, but it would be "nice" to just think one can get away with just slapping something on the master channel.

Take Com Truise, famed for his VHS sound. You can find many threads on the web looking for one simple master effect that delivers that sound, but I haven't seen anything getting any closer. Com Truise himself said in an interview it's a bunch of little details spread around the channels, rather than a master effect that makes it sound VHS. For he sounds like a VHS, yes, but still in a futuristic and modern way. It's not just a VHS. His kicks thump at 50 hz...VHS didn't even have those frequencies.

Am I on the right track to understanding? Congrats to Com Truise then, because I have no effin idea how he achieves that. No effin idea. Maybe VHSing all tracks but not the kick, not all of it at least...how the hell does he do it? Anyway back on topic; it is not magic mastering, or is it? It's mostly mixing. Is my assumption correct or? Most everyone on forums stress how it's all about mixing and not mastering. I hope they're right...

[Tarekith]

That kind of "sound" you're talking about comes from every stage of the writing process coming together to create a cohesive whole. It's starts with the sounds they choose, how they blend them, layer them, effect them, etc. And yes, mixing and mastering can have some impact on that, but it's only one part of the equation.

Do you need an analog desk or tape processing to get that sound? Absolutely not. Can it help? Sure, it might make it easier, but I've heard plenty of completely digital songs that you'd swear were done all in analog if you didn't know better.

When it comes to mastering, most of my clients tend to give me mixdowns that don't have anything on the master. Or at most some very light processing. If you're comfortable with compression and are sure you're not over-doing it, there's nothing wrong with applying that prior to mastering if you like the way it sounds. Same with EQ or any other process. But I'd avoid trying to master it yourself and then send it for mastering, that type of double-processing rarely works that well.

[purpleduck]

Thanks a lot Tarekith. You know what, I'm not joking, I think I am beginning to understand. I just listened to the samples on your site...it's all coming together...the understanding on how to get the sound

Re-listening to Com Truise now...it doesn't sound as mystical as I remembered...I was referring to the memory I had of it when I first listened to it years ago...in the end, it's just a mix...processing there and there...of course I would not be able to immediately replicate it and I don't intend to, it's just not as mysterious as it was to me before.

Same for Royksopp. Years ago I just couldn't understand...that was before I even bought any kind of monitors. It's just not as unfathomable as when I began making music using just the multimedia speakers and crappy headphones I had...of course my mixes didn't use to translate...also I had a tendency to not care if the signal went into the red everything sounded filthy fatiguing, and slowly I began to understand why. I am still traumatized by not being able to figure out how Royksopp sounded so amazing and my first tracks so crap

Over the years I took the time and care on a couple of demos (I don't do this full-time), trying to mix them as good as I could, taking care of gain staging to begin and they didn't come out that bad...I then attempted to master them using the tools I have (and the demo of Ozone), and I could see how easy it is to ruin a track since I don't know what I am doing with master multipressors and the sorts.

So...I just don't have much experience mixing and mastering but it's slowly coming together...your posts helped...the mastering individual tracks or the whole EP thing is not that much of an enigma to me anymore...it's clear that I have to get the sound I want at the composing and mixing stage. I was starting with the false premise that I would need mastering to make tracks sound the way I want. It's the last touch, sure, but everything else is prior.

Are the mastering samples on your site actual projects you worked on or just samples? Because I don't see a client list

[Tarekith]

Maybe these will help you with learning a bit more about mixing and mastering:

http://innerportalstudio.com/articles/Mixdowns.pdf

http://innerportalstudio.com/articles/Mastering.pdf

Yes, all the examples on my website are tracks I’ve mixed or mastered. I’m pretty lucky that almost all of my clients come to me through word of mouth, so I don’t need to spend maintaining a client list on on the site. The audio examples fill that role too.