Mastering Help

[pharrell]

YO YO peeps

Not really I poster on this board more of a lurker in the shadows!!

Just doing the final mix on an album and flushing it through my TC finalizer - Its frustrating I can't seem to get close to the biggness' of Mr Richardson or Sneap. The mixes themselves stand up and have all been tracked with top end Mic pre's and I've used a parallel comp throughout the mixes but still when I try to squash 'em they lose the power of the mix

Any tips??

 

[Brett - K A L I S I A]

Don't squash it ?

 

[pharrell]

Yeah I've been paid to master it tho

 

[pharrell]

Colin Richardson is the pimp daddy

 

[Gomez]

The mixes themselves stand up and have all been tracked with top end Mic pre's and I've used a parallel comp throughout the mixes but still when I try to squash 'em they lose the power of the mix

Any tips??

Try: upward expansion. Maybe you compressed the mix in too many stages. This might help. Squash the shit out of everything is NOT the answer to make something sound bigger, as most people think.

... And I'll recommend that If you have just finished the mix, allow yourself at leas 1 week woithout listening to the material prior to mastering. I find this useful.

Its frustrating I can't seem to get close to the biggness' of Mr Richardson or Sneap.

Why do you want to sound like them? These guys have earned their reputation because they of their OWN sound/style, not by trying to rip off a certain producer/engineer. What i'm trying to say is: if it sounds good to you, go for it.

and... TC finalizer? try something else.

Gomez

 

[Brett - K A L I S I A]

and... TC finalizer? try something else.

Hu ??? Seems like a really nice piece of gear...

 

[Smalex]

I've found they're great in theory, but rubbish in practice. Nothing will ever beat your own ears, especially not a machine with a "wizard".

 

[pharrell]

Yo

Don't get me wrong I don't want to sound like sneap or Richardson... with all due respect to them! But they along with the top producers have a clarity in their mixes which is what I'm after. I would sit with the mixes for a week but I'm onto the next band tomorrow so this needs to be finished.

TC's still kick ass out of most plugins IMO

 

[JV]

I've found they're great in theory, but rubbish in practice. Nothing will ever beat your own ears, especially not a machine with a "wizard".

Hmmmmmm........Andy uses a Finalizer.....I could be wrong, but his work sounds ok to me.

 

[_RiseInside_]

I've found they're great in theory, but rubbish in practice. Nothing will ever beat your own ears, especially not a machine with a "wizard".

Now that´s silly. You don´t have to use the wizard mode. You can tweak it the way you want. Your statement equals saying "i don´t like plug-ins. They come with presets".

Obvious nothing will ever beat our ears. The purpose of creating a tool like the finalizer is letting our ears achive the sound we want. Technology is not the goal. Music is.

 

[Radd]

RiseInside, how's the rme adi2?

 

[James Murphy]

pharrel... just a thought, you might consider learning to master before charging to do it. no effense intended... just common sense.

smalex... who uses the wizard in finalizer?.. i mean, i know it's there.. .but i never heard of anyone actually using it. there are great results to be had with a finalizer... but you have to use your ears.

and with mastering it takes quite a while to hone one's ears to the level where one should remotely entertain the thought of charging for it.

 

[pharrell]

Hey James

Don't worry I do know what I'm doing - Mastering ain't that hard!!

 

[Executioner213]

Then why are you here asking us for help.....if you know what you are doing? Maybe you can come show me all the answers.

Again, as said above....in theory, it's easy, but in practice, it's difficult.

 

[pharrell]

I tend to master a lot of 'Clubland' stuff which is a different art....

 

[Smalex]

Ive just never been able to get any great sounding results out of it. I'd much rather use a really nice piece of analog gear, but i guess it's all personal preference really. and i was talking about wizards with pointy hats

 

[brandy]

If you have to master your own mix, be shure that you have some days between the mix and the mastering. Do other stuff ...

Mastering the own mix is not impossible (like some mastering engineers usually tell) but it is indeed a hard thing. You are not objective to your mix.

A few things witch might help:

- Do not overcompress
- Don't do "preset-Mastering" (each mix is unique, there is no preset which fits "out of the box")
- Try to do the mastering while listen to your hifi-system or something like that, don't forget the boom-box and the car etc
- Don't hesitate to ask some friends to do a listening, they have fresh ears and they are objective in some way
- A/B listening your Mix/Mastering to CDs you like
- Buy Bob Katz' Book "Mastering Audio" (www.digido.com)


brandy

 

[Gomez]

Hey James

Don't worry I do know what I'm doing - Mastering ain't that hard!!

This is probably the 3rd time I'm going to write the same line in the space of 10 days:

There's a difference between "improving the sound of a mix" to "mastering".

... and I mean it.

I do mainly mastering these days and it can be VERY difficult sometimes. It can be a lot easier some other times... depends on the material and where do you want to take it to.

 

[pharrell]

Hey Peeps

Been an interesting few days mastering - Thought I'd update you.

So it seems some sort of clipping is involved to get the silly loudness of most commercial mixes. You can get the loudness with using just compression or limiting but your mix just seems to die as all the dynamic range is pummelled. Also using multiple gain stages seems to work aswell, not just an L2 on the stereo buss.

In the end I went S/PDIF out of PT into the TC Finalizer then came back in via S/PDIF on an Aux into an L3 then into a new audio track and bingo there you go

Also I re-mixed and mastered at the same time

 

[Gomez]

Hey Peeps

Been an interesting few days mastering - Thought I'd update you.

So it seems some sort of clipping is involved to get the silly loudness of most commercial mixes. You can get the loudness with using just compression or limiting but your mix just seems to die as all the dynamic range is pummelled. Also using multiple gain stages seems to work aswell, not just an L2 on the stereo buss.

In the end I went S/PDIF out of PT into the TC Finalizer then came back in via S/PDIF on an Aux into an L3 then into a new audio track and bingo there you go

Also I re-mixed and mastered at the same time

It all sounds a bit crazy! But if it works and you like then, it works. Period.