help with mastering

[Arrrpirate]

my style of music is a weird sort of progressive chiptune/glitch. and i really wanted to get out and play some live. what sort of mastering would be good for this application? i mean im happy with my songs, but im sure they could sound a whole heap more possessional

[Jinsai]

there's a lot of options, and it depends on how you're structuring your live sets. Are you going to be playing back mixed files, or are you going to be reconstructing them from individual parts?

If you're working with completed mixes, nothing will really replace a professional mastering job. If you're working with separate files, you could try throwing a compressor/maximizer/limiter on your master channel, or go with a mastering suite like Izotope Ozone 3... it depends on how much you want to spend, and how much processor power you have. Waves stuff is great, but it's expensive.

[MPGK]

I'd say mastering is a recording thing... for live, just try to make good mixes.

It's all a matter of taste, but I personally believe that live music can take a much greater dynamic range than recordings. That's why I'd do without the usual "sausage compression" when it comes to performing live, especially if you're doing glitchy stuff where you really want to terrify and startle your audience.

[Tarekith]

Hard to offer advice on what to do without hearing your music. This is a good place to start:

http://tarekith.com/assets/mastering.html


In general I'd say that you might not need as much processing during mastering as you might think for live use. Happy to help though if you have any specific questions, I know a few things about mastering.

[Dragonbreath]

Just an idea....

If you have the privilege of sound check you could apply some EQ on the master channel to adapt your sound to house speaker and room.
You obviously tweaked your sound to your speakers and room. This way you have to go in and do each track separately.

+1 with the mastering limiter/compressor/maximizer

watch out for stuff like ozone or waves they tend to processor hungry... could overload your CPU if you have a lot of other tracks with a bunch of effects.

I did try final plug from wave arts. very low on cpu usage and very good limiter/compressor

Hope it helps

[mattadms]

i mean im happy with my songs, but im sure they could sound a whole heap more possessional

then its probably more a thing of the mixing than the mastering itself.

im just having a limiter on my master-out when playing out live.
im sure a multiband-compressor would be good as well to some extend.

i'd use abletons internal plugins for the purpose of playing out live (and well, for stability reasons).

[Jinsai]

i'd use abletons internal plugins for the purpose of playing out live (and well, for stability reasons).

I'd agree, except I've never been happy with Ableton's dynamic plugins. I've reverted to running 7, and I have no issues with running the W1 maximizer/limiter clone, and nothing in Ableton's aresenal comes close to punching the signal like that freebie does
I remember having issues with Live 8's plugins, but I still don't know if it was crashing because of 3rd party plugins, or just general instability. It's so hard to tell.

[mattadms]

are you using the W1 for playing out live?

for me, mastering stuff is a whole different thing than playing out live.
i usually do that with logic and a couple of tc powercore plugins and whatnot

[Jinsai]

are you using the W1 for playing out live?

for me, mastering stuff is a whole different thing than playing out live.
i usually do that with logic and a couple of tc powercore plugins and whatnot

I've played shows with it and without it, I used to use it mainly just to keep the master channel from clipping and to pump the signal a bit. Lately though, I just play everything quieter. However, if someone wanted to ask for a simple maximizer/limiter to use in a live context, that's what I'd suggest really.

I never try to master my own material that I produce... Mastering is a dark art, and I spend way too long working on my tracks. At the end of a project, my ears are burned, and besides the expertise and know-how, I need someone who hasn't listened to the track a million times.

I would always suggest that someone pay for a professional mastering. It's worth it.

[mattadms]

I never try to master my own material that I produce... Mastering is a dark art, and I spend way too long working on my tracks. At the end of a project, my ears are burned, and besides the expertise and know-how, I need someone who hasn't listened to the track a million times.

I totally agree on that

[luddy]

professional mastering in the case of a CD or individual tracks that you are going to release makes a lot of sense. I really have to wonder about it in the case of tracks you are preparing for a live show. The dynamics, balances, panning and eq for live audio are ordinarily pretty different from a CD. I suppose if the mastering engineer knows that, and assuming that he gets to work with all your tracks so that the power levels sound right over the whole live set it might work out ok. But I think there's also a good argument for leaving yourself some flexibility for tuning overall balances and eq at the show, more than you would get by simply apply gain or fx to the master channel.

fwiw,

-Luddy

[mattadms]

professional mastering in the case of a CD or individual tracks that you are going to release makes a lot of sense. I really have to wonder about it in the case of tracks you are preparing for a live show. The dynamics, balances, panning and eq for live audio are ordinarily pretty different from a CD. I suppose if the mastering engineer knows that, and assuming that he gets to work with all your tracks so that the power levels sound right over the whole live set it might work out ok.

I dunno too many mastering-engineers who have access to the single tracks of a production (in the end they are the mastering-engineers, and not the producers, right?).
Panning and EQ for Live arent that different. It really depends on your setup.
There are a lot of artists who work with loops taken from the original track.

I guess that if you need a mastering-engineer to prepare your own live-set, you're doing something fundamentally wrong.

[luddy]

I dunno too many mastering-engineers who have access to the single tracks of a production

I meant all the songs (track as in song, not track is in multitrack recording). One of the primary jobs of a mastering engineer is to give a consistent power level to all the songs on a CD but it seems odd to me to ask a mastering engineer to do this for the songs in a live show. He would have to treat all the songs in your live show as a group to do this.

I guess that if you need a mastering-engineer to prepare your own live-set, you're doing something fundamentally wrong.

+1. (That's what I was trying to say.)

A lot of live show audio is either mono or panned very conservatively, compared to CDs. The EQ curve that a club PA system can reproduce is pretty different from a typical home stereo system. Mastering engineers usually don't have playback systems like club PAs in mind when they treat for example the subbass of a mix. I know that DJs start with songs from CDs, but they don't often play them back verbatim, they do all kinds of things to the kick drum and bass etc. to add power and give it a club sound.

-Luddy

[Tarekith]

I've had a few people ask me to help them get their live sets in order, but it's not what I would call a common thing. Seems to be people who have prerecorded backing tracks more than anything, though there's been a couple people who wanted all their stems cleaned up and sort of a mixdown done on them. Mainly because they had acoustic issues in the studio, and knew their bass levels were all over the place or way too excessive.

But I'd agree that for live use, you generally don't need to limit and compress things like you do for a CD or online release.

[mattadms]

A lot of live show audio is either mono or panned very conservatively, compared to CDs. The EQ curve that a club PA system can reproduce is pretty different from a typical home stereo system. Mastering engineers usually don't have playback systems like club PAs in mind when they treat for example the subbass of a mix. I know that DJs start with songs from CDs, but they don't often play them back verbatim, they do all kinds of things to the kick drum and bass etc. to add power and give it a club sound.

-Luddy

Agreed. Plus, well.. you dont need all that loudness-war crap, cause, well... you're in a club hehe.