Mastering Q

[schust]

due to rough times financially - i've found myself mastering my own material. i know this is a cardinal sin on many levels, but it is what it is.

i figure, the best way to try to get my songs to sound as good as possible is grab a few wavs of professional bands i like, study their frequency curves using Voxengo's SPAN and then try to match that in mine.

happily, it appears there's a lot in common, frequency-wise, between all of these. a nice roll-off at the low-end and high-end and then an almost straight line across all frequencies in between, with little or no jumping or spiking. this is where my tunes vary the most. i have lots of small spikes (probably could have done a better job compressing ind. tracks) and my tunes always seem to have this dip in the mid-range area from about 200hz up to 1/1.5khz.

here's my Question: if i slap an eq on the master bus and, using a fairly wide Q, pull up those frequencies in the middle a few db's - is that going to introduce an "artificial" sound? would i be better off trying to tweak ind. tracks - or just leave it as it is?

 

[Damian B]

You should avoid major "corrective EQ" on the master bus. It's always a better idea to fix it in the mix.

 

[schust]

thanks. i guess i'm wondering than what the definition of 'major' is.. more than 2db?

 

[Damian B]

Personally I try to avoid it entirely.

 

[reg3n]

i don't think i've actually put some effort on mastering ever, i leave that to a friend that actually knows what he does but when i try to get closer to someone's sound, i teak everything BUT the master bus, and when i get too tired and too close to what i want, then yeah, i might use some curve matching on the master, and it gets a lot closer than just using the "final" EQ.

 

[Moonlight_Seeker]

Well, exciting and panning different frequencies also gives different results without tampering with the "more real EQ" or whatever. Like, if the 10k frequency is too loud, maybe you should either spread it or put it in the middle. I'm not a fan of EQing a whole mix. But I'm no pro.

 

[schust]

yea, weird thing is, it does immediately sound better - to my ears. but i've been doing this long enough to understand every action has a reaction. meaning - cranking EQ definitely has an effect - but not always a positive one.

here's the other thing... if i was just some mastering engineer dude that got this material - i'd have no choice but do monkey with the entire mix. would a true mastering engineer pull it up - or leave it is a good question....

i mean, i suppose if i went through every single CD in my collection i could find one that has a dip in the middle - but so far - with the three i've looked at - i haven't. if it's good enough for megadeth, van halen and papa roach - it's good enough for me!!

 

[if6was9]

What I'd do is play around with the master bus eq and see what improves trhe mix, listen to what it affects- like boosting highs in some areas cam really open out the drums but increases fizziness in the guitars, so go in and apply a boost to your oh and snare tracks.

I find sweeping around the master can be revealing for your mix, it's handy for when you are coming up towards the end of your mix to help you figure out how you can improve it. I still sometimes apply a small bit of EQ on the master, usually a high shelf very high up and maybe a slight tailoring to the low end. I recently brought 2 tracks to a pretty savage mastering guy where I'd taken everything off the master bus, and found he applied the same hi shelf and applied a little eq to the low end too. Made me happy to see the pro's doing it too.