Ableton Forum

i have a rudimentary understanding of mixing/mastering, but very little real life experience with it, so any pointers/helpful links would be appreciated.

i've finished my track in live and i'm about to export it to another program for the final stage of mastering/juicing up/what have you, for a digital release. at this point, the track is mixed to satisfaction, and sounds good in live on sony mdr-7506 cans, my laptop speakers, my ipod speaker, and mackie HR624s

2 questions:

1.- is it important to make sure the master level (within live) never goes into the red before rendering?

2.- would it be best at this stage to:

a. render the live session to a stereo track and finish it in peak with mastering plugs
or
b. render the tracks individually from live, open the rendered tracks in a new live (or logic, etc.) session, apply eq/compression/sonic maximizing/stereo isolation/limiting plugins to each track individually, re-adjust levels to taste, then go to step a.

thanks,
d

1. ALWAYS!!!!!

2. a. Using Logic won't gain you anything, unless you're using Logic's plug ins versus Live's included plug ins (Logics are admittedly much better). If you're using 3rd party plug ins during the mixdown, there will be no difference in sound quality between Live and Logic.

Tarekith wrote:1. ALWAYS!!!!!

2. a. Using Logic won't gain you anything, unless you're using Logic's plug ins versus Live's included plug ins (Logics are admittedly much better). If you're using 3rd party plug ins during the mixdown, there will be no difference in sound quality between Live and Logic.

thanks, Tarekith.


the remaining question is whether or not i should bounce all 12 tracks down and juice them individually before working with the track as a stereo file.

so, to rephrase question 2.: would it be better to...

a. render the live session to a stereo track and finish it in peak with mastering plugs
or
b. render the tracks individually from live, open the rendered tracks in a new live (or logic, etc.) session, apply eq/compression/sonic maximizing/stereo isolation/limiting plugins to each track individually, re-adjust levels to taste, then go to step a.

i'll be using izotope ozone as my primary mastering tool. of course if i take route b., i could use various other plugs before rendering to the stereo file.

there is probably terminology for each of these post-composition stages, but i'm not sure what it is, and the bits of literature i've read on the subject don't really apply to digital releases.

dm_hawk wrote:i have a rudimentary understanding of mixing/mastering, but very little real life experience with it, so any pointers/helpful links would be appreciated.

i've finished my track in live and i'm about to export it to another program for the final stage of mastering/juicing up/what have you, for a digital release. at this point, the track is mixed to satisfaction, and sounds good in live on sony mdr-7506 cans, my laptop speakers, my ipod speaker, and mackie HR624s

2 questions:

1.is it important to make sure the master level (within live) never goes into the red before rendering?

2.would it be best at this stage to:
a. render the live session to a stereo track and finish it in peak with mastering plugs
or
b.render the tracks individually from live, mix/juice them up in logic, then go to step a.

thanks,
d

Here's some more questions that you, in my opinion, should as:

1.
Q: To what RMS-level should I master the track?

A: Check other songs in the same genre, and master to about the same RMS.



2.
Q: How do I find the RMS-level for a song?

A: Use a good wave-editor, or use a plugin.




3.
Q: Is there a rule of thumb for RMS-levels?

A: For pop-music, it's usually between -9 to -12, I don't know what style you do.




4.
Q: How do I tag the files for release?

A: It depends on how and thru whom you are releasing it.
Some companies will tag for themselves.
It this is the case, just provide them with the information and a CD.

If not, make a 320 MP3-file, and a 192MP3-file, and tag them in a good tag-editor, like iTunes.





5.

Q: Anything else?

A: If you want to get paid if the song starts to sell and it gets on the radio, you will have to remember to use a ISRC-code for the song.

If you already have a company-ISRC, use that one, and just follow the standard ISRC - labeling-rules (google this if you don't know what ISRC is).

If not, you will have to apply for a ISRC-label code.

Remember to mark both the CD physically, and while you burn it - there should be an option for ISRC if you are using a good cd-burner, and tag the MP3's with the ISRC too.

Good luck!

Hepha Luemp

dm_hawk wrote:a. render the live session to a stereo track and finish it in peak with mastering plugs
or
b. render the tracks individually from live, open the rendered tracks in a new live (or logic, etc.) session, apply eq/compression/sonic maximizing/stereo isolation/limiting plugins to each track individually, re-adjust levels to taste, then go to step a.

No no no, always always A. You won't know if you even need to apply any processing to the tracks until theya re all playing back together. Doing them individual means you're apply effects blind really, you have no idea what effects the tracks REALLY need that way. Do your mixdown in Live, export as a stereo 24bit file, master in Ozone.

Tarekith wrote:

dm_hawk wrote:a. render the live session to a stereo track and finish it in peak with mastering plugs
or
b. render the tracks individually from live, open the rendered tracks in a new live (or logic, etc.) session, apply eq/compression/sonic maximizing/stereo isolation/limiting plugins to each track individually, re-adjust levels to taste, then go to step a.

No no no, always always A. You won't know if you even need to apply any processing to the tracks until theya re all playing back together. Doing them individual means you're apply effects blind really, you have no idea what effects the tracks REALLY need that way. Do your mixdown in Live, export as a stereo 24bit file, master in Ozone.

i was wondering if i explained that clearly enough.

what i meant was: render the tracks individually from the original live session, open the rendered tracks TOGETHER in a new session (consisting of 12 audio tracks in this case), apply eq/compression/sonic maximizing/stereo isolation/limiting plugins to each track individually, re-adjust levels to taste.
should i do this before rendering the whole shebang to a stereo file and putting the final touches on it in peak?

[render the tracks individually from the original live session, open the rendered tracks TOGETHER (as a live session consisting of 12 audio tracks), apply eq/compression/sonic maximizing/stereo isolation/limiting plugins to each track individually, re-adjust levels to taste.] is this what is commonly referred to as a mixdown?

I guess I don't understand why you'd want to render them, only to reimport them? Are you running out of CPU power? Personally, I just export a singel stereo file from my working project, then master it. The less you do to a file the better IMO, and that includes unneccesary importing and exporting.

Hepha Luemp wrote:For pop-music, it's usually between -9 to -12, I don't know what style you do.

Oh really? I always thought it should be something like -0.2 or so!
I'm so surprised because it now seems to be the race for as loud a track as possible... Mmmmm... do i get something wrong here? I happened to open some mp3s in an editor and i remember that, except ambient or acoustic, it was optimized and limited very close to 0dB. I must be missing something, though i remember my good old days when i was making music for tv documentaries, the guy always wanted a dat with -12. I never cared to ask why... but i'm still wondering. Why not normalizing to 0 dB?
Please Hepha, if you have a moment... Thanx

xuoham wrote:

Hepha Luemp wrote:For pop-music, it's usually between -9 to -12, I don't know what style you do.

Oh really? I always thought it should be something like -0.2 or so!
I'm so surprised because it now seems to be the race for as loud a track as possible... Mmmmm... do i get something wrong here? I happened to open some mp3s in an editor and i remember that, except ambient or acoustic, it was optimized and limited very close to 0dB. I must be missing something, though i remember my good old days when i was making music for tv documentaries, the guy always wanted a dat with -12. I never cared to ask why... but i'm still wondering. Why not normalizing to 0 dB?
Please Hepha, if you have a moment... Thanx

xuoham, it's not the peaks, set them to 0dB - but be careful, because of intersample-peaks, it is possible to get distortion from a 0dB file, use a maximiser that prevents intersample peaks - and oh, I don't think anybody do the -0.3 anymore.

If you don't understand what intersample peaks is, google it.


RMS is the average volume.
Google that to.




Hint for finding it: check my last post, or: go into your wave-editor, look for statistics or track-info or something.

Allright!!! Thanks a lot Hepha!
RMS is not the peaks but the average... Got it. About time!

Tarekith wrote:I guess I don't understand why you'd want to render them, only to reimport them? Are you running out of CPU power? Personally, I just export a singel stereo file from my working project, then master it. The less you do to a file the better IMO, and that includes unneccesary importing and exporting.

bingo. that's what i was wondering. my cpu is maxing out in this case, but the track doesn't need anymore doctoring outside of the final stage.

thanks for the responses

If you are going to (b.) render the tracks individually, you will just be processing them/mixing them again (akin to a final mix, not master, not rough mix, and def not a composition) ... anyone correct me if I'm wrong; so best option is render the final mix to 1 stereo file & master with your Izotop Ozone.

.02

~B

there are many threads like this on the forum - noobs poking around in the dark, trying to agree on/learn the "correct" terminology and procedure for this post-compositional production phase. meanwhile, someone who has actually set foot in a full-scale studio will chime in and try to straighten things out, but then another person with similar experience, will come in with a different viewpoint. and so on...

maybe the easy availability of recording technology of late has spawned so many lone wolves (myself included) with no conventional recording studio experience, that we're a bit lost when it comes to getting our creations to jive with the sonic standards established by the 80+ years of commercial music production and consumer electronics. i read a small book about mixing (which was helpful for the most part) and another one about mastering, but they clearly didn't apply to a 100% homebrew project. they covered things like how to properly label your tape master before sending it off to the lab

composing/producing/making phaaat beeetz/etc. is a relatively free form process, but getting it to sound good next to other recorded music on any set of speakers seems to be an art in itself, with its own set of standards.