How to master

[pedromau]

Hey guys!
I'm a total newbie on mixing / mastering stuff... and there's a question I'd like to solve...

How do you usually master your mixes?
Should I export my drum tracks, guitars, bass, etc to one wav (per instrument) and make a new project to master it?

I use 11 tracks for drums, 2/3 for guitars, 1 bass and 1 vocal, and when I start adding plugins, my computer goes crazy!
And I do own some reasonable material:

Quad-Core 3, 66Hz
6Gb Ram DDR3
EMU-1820M
Windows 7 x64
Nuendo 5.0

But when I add stuff like compression, gate... recabinet3... it freezes!

PS: Sorry for my English

 

[timislegend]

sounds like mixing to me. there are a bunch of ways that people master, the most common is a stereo 2-track that may-or-may-not require loudness/compression/surgical eq etc etc. but to avoid your computer from "freezing" during the mastering stages you might want to mix it first, then spend about 2-4 years of endless mistakes and successes (technical-trial and error) until you have a final, listenable version of your mix.

i have always said that the most important piece of equipment an engineer can own is the mtr (other than ref monitors and room treatment).

sounds like you have a decent mtr... just optimize it for digital audio and don't use cracked plugins and you should be square.

 

[ApeScaleConflict]

Only HE-MAN knows how to MASTER the universe.

 

[ApeScaleConflict]

But i've noticed that if you lift the delay time on impulse loader software it lays some dark force on my cpu.

 

[reg3n]

Only HE-MAN knows how to MASTER the universe.

+1000000

 

[ahjteam]

if you don't know how to master, it is better to pay a professional to let them do it. just make the mix sound stellar.

 

[MaellaJohn]

Quad-Core 3, 66Hz

What?

 

[Audiosprite]

What?

loleurope

but yeah, +1 to paying a professional to do it. it's cheaper than you'd think and it makes a huge difference.

 

[MaellaJohn]

1) Pay a professional this time
2) Fuck around with stuff for 3-4 months
3) Know how to master songs
4) ???
5) Profit

 

[Morgan C]

1) Pay a professional this time
2) Fuck around with stuff for 3-4 decades
3) Know how to master songs
4) ???
5) Profit

Fixed.



Also, OP, your computer shouldn't be struggling like that. Mine's a Dualcore 2ghz with only 2gb of RAM and it generally runs fine, although if I've got ampsims going and stuff it usually gets to near 100% CPU. You computer seems to be at least 3-4 times faster than mine.

 

[MaellaJohn]

Fixed.

I got a good lol from the fix.

 

[laszlozsolt82]

I suggest you to spend more time on mixing the material, if you are not happy with the mix do it over and over again, until you achive the best you can.Make space for every instrument .Eq and panning it`s your friend. Use compression. To save up some CPU resource freeze every track in Nuendo when you are happy with them, or you can even consolidate .The more plugins you insert the more you have to increase the buffer size... Automate the volume of the tracks, this way you can achive more level, try mixing the material inserting a Mixbuss comp on the masterbuss before you start the actual mixing process. Insert a transparent limiter after(I like Ozone) and check sometimes how it sounds the mix limited hard to commercial levels, how it affects the overall sound.Make a stereo mixdown with the mixbuss comp & limiter, listen back your mix what changes dou you have to made, becouse some parts become louder in the mix when you limit wery hard...go back ang adjust the thing you dont like, volume eq etcetc... Then when you are happy with the result you can export a stereo mix with just the mixbuss comp,bypassing the limiter, and put it in a separate session, and start the actual "mastering" process.Make sure you got enough headroomon on that stereo track ; i usualy insert a soft clipper first in the master buss chain, then Ozone(sometimes Tracks), try to mess a little bit with the eq setting the multiband comp and of course tha last in the chain is a hard limiter.
This is my method of working, and this way i was abel to obtain my "best" mixes, but if you got the money you better hire some professional to do the job,there are lot of online mastering solutions , most of them offer free samples of a couple of seconds of mastered version of your mix so this way you can choose easy the best alternative. Communication it`s a key factor, ask the mastering engineers opinion what suggestions can he say about the mix, and go back to the mixing process fix them and then send back tha tracks for master. There is a proccess could multitrack mastering, where you export on separate tracks the guitars ,vocals, drums etc, etc and this way the mastering engineer can sometimes obtain better results and correct problems more easily, especialaly if you are a beginner on mixing, but this method it`s more expensive.