Ableton Forum

when making tracks i have eq 4 and comp2 on the master track, mastering is done through sound forge and ozone....just wondering what other folks have on their master channel???

also, im working on a live set, it will consist of about 7 of my own tracks where im happy with the eq/compression etc just wondering if people would bother having anything on the master that would colour the sound when you are happy with the track in the first place???

so what im asking is how does your master track differ to when making a track and doing a live set

cheers

if you're planning on mixing your tracks together I would sudjest a simple limiter on the master, cause 2 tracks playing together is louder ya know?

i keep nothing on the master, for either. if making a track, you master later, don't want to color what you're doing in response to fx on master. if live, almost every PA (as others have mentioned) is ridiculously compressed, etc. i don't know that having fx on master would hurt, but it also likely won't help.

T-Racks EQ - ~55Hz cutoff, little boost at ~4.5kHZ
PSP Vintage Warmer - warmth + limiting, can't remember the preset I use

That's it.

I keep all my individual tracks at pretty low levels, and try not to bump into my limiter as much as possible.

I've tried all sorts of combos, but I find that the more junk you add to your mastering chain, the worse it all sounds. Tends to get all the sounds lumped together. Besides that, I have a lowpass autofilter and a highpass autofilter on each track that I use for EQ.

Nothing at all on master if I'm working on a song. I prefer to compress/eq/etc each track separately. For final mixsdown/mastering I use Ozone.

- 4 all the way, then think about mastering .. i have a guy who does my work thats good enought to be mastered, bit of a prick but good at what he does .. fresh pair of ears make all the diferance... his still a prick

paddypaws wrote:- 4 all the way, then think about mastering ..

interesting you mention -4, someone very well-known in techno whose word I trust said the same thing to me at the weekend

digitalfishphones blockfish - set to imitate the limiter on the master channel of my HDD recorder

If I go more than 8 tracks for a song, I bounce each of them to individual tracks in my HDD recorder

(I like the way it sums better than doing it in the software)

otherwise I mix as I build

(you're gonna hate your first passes anyway - so why not do a couple of other pieces and mix them before you come back and give it a second shot?)

- r

ps. anyone notice the music vs OT ratio is flipping this week?

Great ideas when working on tracks. How about in a live performance situation?

camelcrusher on the tube warmth preset and a tbt master limiter. not sure i need the camelcrusher though, just been experimenting with it lately.

underhill wrote:Great ideas when working on tracks. How about in a live performance situation?

I "bypass" the master section altogether and route each Live channel to a separate channel on my mixer via the Ext Out tab.

(so - nothing in the master for a live situation)

- r

for live, i use george yohng's w1 limiter, output to -.5, threshhold -.9...
just as a brick wall so i never clip. i try to mix so my output sits around -6, just hitting the limiter on rare occasion. i feel that a 6db above/below the the basic level(up to 12db of dynamic) is alot of dynamic through decent p.a. systems. for mixes to be released, these days i use nothing on the output and mix for peaks at -3db max.
i have a friend with a mastering suite, he has a few different programs including wavelab and vegas, a few others, and some analog gear.
i really want to get my hands on a tc finalizer rack unit to haul around, really amazing hardware piece.

muthafunka wrote:

paddypaws wrote:- 4 all the way, then think about mastering ..

interesting you mention -4, someone very well-known in techno whose word I trust said the same thing to me at the weekend

well then it's all good .. my template is set to -4

sorry, what do you mean -4?

sorry, what do you mean -4?

I use -8, without any comps/eq's

That is, the masterfader max is -8db.