Mastering recommendations?

[PivotPointMusic]

This is a tricky topic. First of all, the best approach is to hire a professional mastering engineer and ask if you can shadow him/her while they master your music.

They'll show/tell you:

1. tricks that you didn't think to do yourself (multiple levels of A/B monitoring and referencing)

2. where you're making mistakes in your recordings

3. how you can improve your mixes

After you get a feel for the process, you can branch out on your own with much better results.

My chain is typically:

1. Subtractive EQ (remove any conflicting frequencies - think lower mids)

2. Moderate compression (-2 to -3 dB of fast gain reduction at the peaks)

3. Slight high end boost (newer releases are bright!)

4. Multiband limiter

5. Secret weapon: DeEsser goes last - focusing on reducing the 6K to 8K sibilance. Those are the ugly peaks that make homemade recordings sound brittle/digital.

[Prometheus]

I'll tell you one thing you can be certain of. If you never practice mastering, you'll never learn how to do it, and if you ever want to be a sound engineer to trade, you have to master products. A lot of the mystique surrounding mastering is a throwback to the days of using acetate and mastering onto vinyl disk. Those days are gone, and taking a track that has been performed by a professional band and recorded and mixed by a professional engineer isn't a Herculean task that only the Gods can complete.

If you have the skillset you need to record and mix sounds, then you certainly have the skills to master as well. I've worked with a lot of pro sound engineers, and one thing I can tell you is that no matter what room you end up being let loose in, and you don't always have the luxury of a flawless anechoic studio, you'd be hard pressed to find any professional engineer who's going to run away and hide if he's asked to master a two track mixdown.

I've worked with hard drinking sound engineers, tea total sound engineers, atheists, bible punchers, happy ones, sad ones, philaderers, puritans, loners, gregarious engineers, all sorts and the capable, professional ones all have one thing in common.

They have a faith bordering on arrogance in their capabilities. A self belief that they will make the right decisions. They aren't going to refuse a job mastering a two track mixdown, because that wouldn't be the right stuff...

Edited November 15, 2008 by Prometheus

[Prometheus]

5. Secret weapon: DeEsser goes last - focusing on reducing the 6K to 8K sibilance. Those are the ugly peaks that make homemade recordings sound brittle/digital.

If you don't have a lot of experience with DeEssers, listen carefully and make sure you don't give the singer a lisp...

[john]

overall I think is to know your limitations. Home mastering may be good enough for demos, but unless you have the gear and the knowledge I'd recommend going to a professional studio for mastering for CD production etc

[DuartmaN]

get Izotope Ozone is all you need to get an incredible sound, they also have a free mastering guide in pdf format.

hope it helps!!

Thanks hariossa, im trying this amazing tools and they are very nice im using Sonar 8.5 but the dynamic tools included on this software are not so good like izotope

[offcenter2005]

Hey

Do you guys have any recommendations for mastering? Do it yourself with a decent mastering package vs professional mastering? If you have experience of either I'd love to hear your opinions, recommendations and advice.

Cheers

John

One thing that i have found is you should never mix or master your own recordings. The main reason in my opinion is you need fresh ears that will hear things in a different way. Ear fatigue or just being burnt out on listening to your own material over and over gets frustrating. I have had so many issues trying to get my songs sounding perfect and they never do. But If an experienced person gets a hold of your masters they can bring a whole new level of life and sparkle to the sound. Not to say That is the case for every one but it sure helps to have an outside take on sound interpretation.

Edited February 8, 2011 by offcenter2005

[Roflcopter]

One thing that i have found is you should never mix or master your own recordings.

Mastering is a much-abused term, and if you have recordings for commercial publishing you should let a pro do the mastering, I agree. Not so sure about (stem) mixing, though - most people seem capable enough of doing that themselves. Everything takes practice, though - one thing most novices do wrong is mixing on headphones, in stead of decent monitor speakers - which of course are not cheap.

One thing to remember is that if you intend to let someone else finish it, is to abstain from using any serious FX on the tracks - undoing that, can be impossible, and the mastering house has plugins you can only dream of.

[offcenter2005]

Mastering is a much-abused term, and if you have recordings for commercial publishing you should let a pro do the mastering, I agree. Not so sure about (stem) mixing, though - most people seem capable enough of doing that themselves. Everything takes practice, though - one thing most novices do wrong is mixing on headphones, in stead of decent monitor speakers - which of course are not cheap.

One thing to remember is that if you intend to let someone else finish it, is to abstain from using any serious FX on the tracks - undoing that, can be impossible, and the mastering house has plugins you can only dream of.

For mixing and mastering I use mostly waves mercury bundle and that has so many options its ridiculous. And just to add that if someone mixing their own music has a fondness for a specific instrument they love to keep that instrument in the front. Lead players especially love to take their solos and crank it in the mix even if it sounds way too loud.

Edited February 8, 2011 by offcenter2005

[john]

very good points on the instrument prominence.

[Roflcopter]

I guess it's true that the average band member is inclined to have his pet instrument taking over the recording

I kinda forget I don't have that problem as pronounced, doing all the sounds myself. Then again, I can imagine the other band members howling in dismay, if they have any sense.

[AlexOConnor]

I don't know what mastering means. =]

[Fuzzbuggy]

I currently use Cubase 5 for my recordings and will be starting my EP recording process soon. In saying that i've recorded a song with it from start to end and find the most vital tool is multiband compression and like hariossa said Izotope Ozone (now v3 is out) which is an outstanding mastering vst plugin for your final mix. Definitely take a look at those.

[Prometheus]

I don't know what mastering means. =]

It simply refers to tweaking a multitrack mixdown into a product suitable for stereo (or surround) playback.

I don't think you're alone there. It's by far the easiest part, in the digital era, of producing a record and yet it's the part people seem most daunted by. It stands to reason that if recording and mixing an album takes weeks and then mastering it takes a few hours, there is a lot less difficulty involved in the mastering process.

There was a rule, in the days when physical cutting needles were used that you should never attempt your own mastering. The cutting equipment was expensive and could be catastrophically damaged by low end phasing problems, so the process had to be handled by a specialist.

It no longer applies in this day and age when the mastered product tends to be on digital media.

When it comes to mastering do your homework on it and practice it and you'll become good at it, same as anything else in music.

Edited June 15, 2011 by Prometheus

[analogmonks]

http://www.analogmonks.com

Processing T-RACKS 3

[Retrosaurus Rex]

Apropos of nothing...

http://www.analogmonks.com

Processing T-RACKS 3

[Prometheus]

Nice Video...

[Prometheus]

Nice Video...

Or to put it another way, spam.

This seems to be appearing on a lot of threads where it isn't relevant...

[JayYarbrough]

I second the Izotope Ozone suggestion. It really is amazing. I used to use T-racks and thought it was the bomb, until I tried Ozone 5. Try the free demo and you will see.

[TapperMike]

Mastering is very important for finished product.  Especially for what occurs after the product is mastered.  Distribution methods.

http://forums.songstuff.com/blog/159/entry-1320-listen-to-what-theyve-done-to-my-song-an-engineering-perspective/

 

 

I'm sure I read like a broken record at this point but. If you ever envision your music on a major label it will be mastered.  Record Labels, Television, Movies, and radio stations all understand the need for mastering audio.  And if your song is going to go thru the mill (see my article) after the fact. Then it only means you need it mastered moreso as a preventitive measure.

 

If you want to hate the labels well. That's your business but very few if any people have reached the top or stayed on the top without them.  Post production works which is why they demand it when you are under contract with a label.

[Prometheus]

If you want to hate the labels well. That's your business but very few if any people have reached the top or stayed on the top without them.

 

I know this isn't a mastering recommendation, but I find it impossible to let this go uncontested.  If all you want is to make money, then this is correct, you have to court industry insiders, you have to kiss their asses and you have to kiss them hard.  If you're trying to create music for reasons other than making money, say, for the love of music or to try to advance music as an art form, then labels will be of absolutely no use to you.

 

 

“The best work in literature is always done by those who do not depend on it for their daily bread and the highest form of literature, Poetry, brings no wealth to the singer,†-- Oscar Wilde

 

 

Labels are a reducing valve into a narrow pipeline that compresses (no pun intended) creativity into the most bland, safe, dull and one dimensional conformist crap imaginable.  The only way to ever do anything that's worth listening to is to do it out of love, not for money.  The minute you tailor your work to making money, all you're going to do is release shit that you don't even like yourself.  You'd be as well just forming a wedding band, if money's your thing, and be guaranteed an income of several grand a month if you're any good at doing what other people tell you.

 

Everyone complains about how crap musicians and song writers are today compared with the sixties or seventies.  They aren't.  They just have more shackles put on them and are so poorly treated and discouraged that most of them have to fall back on less impecunious careers for their daily bread as they struggle away never really getting their message out to a wider audience.  

 

In the old days, labels used to send scouts out to look for talented bands.  Now you have to supplicate yourself to them to have them listen to a demo for thirty seconds.  Vincenzo Galilee couldn't have analyzed a piece of music in thirty seconds.  It's a complete nonsense.  A myth propagated by grey suited hacks, many of whom couldn't even tune a guitar let alone write a song, because they're so stuffed with conceit and wrapped up in their own perceived importance that they can't see past the inside of the door to their own office.

 

I don't hate record labels, I deplore them.  Let the artists create the art and let the grey suits count the money, and have the two separated like Church and State in the USA.  Then we'll hear visceral and raw emotion in mainstream music again.

 

What does it mean to be on top?  Is it making money or is it producing something that actually says something to people?  I don't accept that money is the only measure of success.