mastering
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cosmosuave
- Posts: 1774
- Joined: Mon Mar 15, 2004 3:36 am
- Location: Toronto
- Contact:
Check the archives of the following magazines...
Sound on Sound... Computer Music... Future Music
try http://www.tweakheadz.com
Sound on Sound... Computer Music... Future Music
try http://www.tweakheadz.com
It depends on what the release is for. If it's just for your personal use, try putting this on your master fader:
Live Compressor - light 2:1, slow attack, medium release, not pumping, etc.
Classic Limiter VST (free at KVR), for a little more limiting but use lightly.
Possibly the 4-band EQ after all that to sweeten back up the high and warm up the lows, etc.
Play around with those and use very lightly. The less you can get away with using on your 2-buss the better, i.e. automate levels in the individual tracks to deal with dynamics etc.
If it is for commercial release I highly recommend having a real Mastering Engineer do it for you. It's cheap and your stuff always sounds amazing after running thru a $50,000 - $250,000 mastering chain with a great M.E.'s set of ears on it. Rodney Mills Masterhouse (www.rodneymills.com) is only $10 per recorded minute ($50 for a 5-minute song, etc). I've used him plenty of times and always a good end product. Most mastering labs will take your stuff via mail. Send the raw stereo .wav, sdII, or .aiff files, etc.
Live Compressor - light 2:1, slow attack, medium release, not pumping, etc.
Classic Limiter VST (free at KVR), for a little more limiting but use lightly.
Possibly the 4-band EQ after all that to sweeten back up the high and warm up the lows, etc.
Play around with those and use very lightly. The less you can get away with using on your 2-buss the better, i.e. automate levels in the individual tracks to deal with dynamics etc.
If it is for commercial release I highly recommend having a real Mastering Engineer do it for you. It's cheap and your stuff always sounds amazing after running thru a $50,000 - $250,000 mastering chain with a great M.E.'s set of ears on it. Rodney Mills Masterhouse (www.rodneymills.com) is only $10 per recorded minute ($50 for a 5-minute song, etc). I've used him plenty of times and always a good end product. Most mastering labs will take your stuff via mail. Send the raw stereo .wav, sdII, or .aiff files, etc.
J.Ho
..
there so much you can say about it.
my rules:
- don't over compress
- if you can make a better mix, do it. then you won't need to master it.
- only correct small spots. look at the waveform and see where the spikes in dynamics are and correct those and then add some volume/gain.
- don't use clip mastering (like most professional mastering engineers no do) because you can only listen 2 times to that kind of music before you start hating it.
dynamics are cool, overly compressed music sounds very boring. at least to me it does
my rules:
- don't over compress
- if you can make a better mix, do it. then you won't need to master it.
- only correct small spots. look at the waveform and see where the spikes in dynamics are and correct those and then add some volume/gain.
- don't use clip mastering (like most professional mastering engineers no do) because you can only listen 2 times to that kind of music before you start hating it.
dynamics are cool, overly compressed music sounds very boring. at least to me it does
I am not a professional M.E. but... hehe
Generally it is best to try and master on a per track basis if possible. That way you will end up with fewer audio issues in your mix that need to be fixed by a professional.
Do your best to try not to 'master' your track until you are finished your song...
To do this... in live or in another application... I put an eq on any track that needs to be tamed, enhanced etc... if you have a really hard time boosting a track, try running it through a tube for gain or use a compressor to increase the overall volume of the track.
Personally I try and stay away from compressing the master track because you will very likely kill the dynamic volume of your song... ie everything will be loud.
If you are at all skilled as a dj then you'll already know this, but say you have a snare track and drum track that has more snares in it. if you want to enhance one set of snares over the other you could eq one track to emphasize the sound for one, and de-emphasize the other. This can be applied for drums... leads... pads... anything that you need to chop away at just enough to give room to another sound, but to still keep it in the mix.
Now... having said all that... if you get good at it, and listen to your mix, you can ride your eqs to dynamically shape and move your song on a track per track basis. Listening, you should be able to have a good idea of which part of your song needs to take the lead.
One last 'trick'... I like to have a reverb effect on the send track, to make sure that any track that doesn't have reverb on it, can be added to the 'room'. Quite often you'll find that a track, or sample sounds out of place, like it is someplace else. If you just squeeze a little reverb into it, then you'll get a bit more presense and grounding for the sound. You'll find this to especially be a problem for samples that are entirely synthetic...
Good luck!
Do your best to try not to 'master' your track until you are finished your song...
To do this... in live or in another application... I put an eq on any track that needs to be tamed, enhanced etc... if you have a really hard time boosting a track, try running it through a tube for gain or use a compressor to increase the overall volume of the track.
Personally I try and stay away from compressing the master track because you will very likely kill the dynamic volume of your song... ie everything will be loud.
If you are at all skilled as a dj then you'll already know this, but say you have a snare track and drum track that has more snares in it. if you want to enhance one set of snares over the other you could eq one track to emphasize the sound for one, and de-emphasize the other. This can be applied for drums... leads... pads... anything that you need to chop away at just enough to give room to another sound, but to still keep it in the mix.
Now... having said all that... if you get good at it, and listen to your mix, you can ride your eqs to dynamically shape and move your song on a track per track basis. Listening, you should be able to have a good idea of which part of your song needs to take the lead.
One last 'trick'... I like to have a reverb effect on the send track, to make sure that any track that doesn't have reverb on it, can be added to the 'room'. Quite often you'll find that a track, or sample sounds out of place, like it is someplace else. If you just squeeze a little reverb into it, then you'll get a bit more presense and grounding for the sound. You'll find this to especially be a problem for samples that are entirely synthetic...
Good luck!