Mastering Metal (as in Audio Mastering)

[IrvOnly]

Hey Sorry i took a long time to answer back. Thanks for te suggestions. as far as budget Id say somewhere around 500$ tops. Were really working on a budget and dont have too many options on the country I live in. THANK GOD FOR THE FORUMS LOL

I listened to your band music tenebre. Theyre really good mixes. oCongrats man

 

[SethTheGreat]

Currently, I'm trying to keep a simple less-is-more master chain. I was using a ridiculous amount of plugs in my chain which ended up giving less than favorable results. Currently on the master I will have an SSL Comp using a Mastering preset as a starting point but I will tweak it so I'm getting no more than -3 to -4db gain reduction. I *may* use MaxxBass on the master depending on the material, but after that I pretty much let Ozone do all the work, using a little smidgin of everything it has to offer, and getting the loudness. If I've mixed the elements well enough find I can get a decent -7db RMS master that doesn't out of control. I recently tested the last mix I did with this at a friend's house with my iPod plugged into his system at a ridiculously loud volume and I was pretty pleased with it!

+1 to this

I end up with some pretty solid masters (as in nice and loud but still a perfect representation of my original mix) by basically following this formula.

I use some light-ish compression (currently defaulting to "the glue" by cytomic) then an instance of ozone 5, mostly for a little stereo widening and some very slight eq (I actually find many of their presets very useable with some tweaking), then a couple instances of gclip (free... google it) raising a few db at a time and lightly clipping.

If your mix is balanced in the first place, a few instances of gclip is all you need.

This may be a far cry from a real "mastering" job, but it's loud and it sounds good [sadly] compared to current standards.

:Spin:

 

[Widekmusic]

Hey Sorry i took a long time to answer back. Thanks for te suggestions. as far as budget Id say somewhere around 500$ tops. Were really working on a budget and dont have too many options on the country I live in. THANK GOD FOR THE FORUMS LOL

I listened to your band music tenebre. Theyre really good mixes. oCongrats man

Hi man! Check out your inbox

 

[MaorAppelbaumMastering]

Good mastering can bring so much musicality to the overall sound of the mix and deliver the essence of the music to the listener and stay in his mind for a long time

Bad mastering can just make the music sound less interesting and fatiguing.

So volume is not that important as some might think - actually most good albums are not that loud - but they bring the bands vibe to the listener really well