Are there any good online resources on how to master? Until I actually record something that's worth paying for someone else to master, I'll do it myself--in the mean time, how in the hell do you do it?
Mastering
- Thread starter Genius Gone Insane
- Start date
Bob Katz has written some good articles here, which deal mostly with the theory behind mastering and some pointers. There's definitely an hour or so of good reading there (though take some of his points with a grain of salt; I'll leave it at that for now).
An extremely simple, step-by-step approach is available from Computer Music Magazine's site here. It's a bit constrictive; you really can't follow a step-by-step guide and expect a great master, but there's some helpful tips nonetheless.
Hope that's a start!
An extremely simple, step-by-step approach is available from Computer Music Magazine's site here. It's a bit constrictive; you really can't follow a step-by-step guide and expect a great master, but there's some helpful tips nonetheless.
Hope that's a start!
This is how Jeremy Allom [ massive attack / bjork ] mastered our cd
Cut out some low low end [ below 60 - 80 ]
add some sparkle [ 1-2db 15k and above ]
a/b it to ur reference track
EQ to taste
Maybe a compressor or multiband ? i'm not a fan of these things really as i sometimes use bus compression so i don't really need to use it agn for mastering
crank up the L2 / whatever finaliser/limiter u use
-set threshold to the loudest u can without squashing the mix too much [ if u did a good mix u can go up to about -7 on the threshold ] [ ur mixes if done well the highest and loudest bits should be around -19RMS to -17RMS therefore if done right u can get ur loudest bits to hit -10 - -12 RMS after mastering which is the sorta professional level that is required nowadays ]
done .
see the problem lies in : anyone can do this steps but not many people have the cultured or objective ear to weed out frequencies to narrow band level . unless u've trained heaps in golden ears or something .
The 1st thing i noticed when i sat down with the mastering engineer was that there are no specific rules to mastering . some use compression , some dont' , some use linMB , some don't , some use C4, i don't .
The idea of mastering is to enhance the quality of the recording/song so that it's loud enough and sounds good on most speakers .How this is achieved is entirely dependant on the source material that u have .
now can anyone help me with finding Andy's Mesa boogie settings ???
Regards
Roland
Cut out some low low end [ below 60 - 80 ]
add some sparkle [ 1-2db 15k and above ]
a/b it to ur reference track
EQ to taste
Maybe a compressor or multiband ? i'm not a fan of these things really as i sometimes use bus compression so i don't really need to use it agn for mastering
crank up the L2 / whatever finaliser/limiter u use
-set threshold to the loudest u can without squashing the mix too much [ if u did a good mix u can go up to about -7 on the threshold ] [ ur mixes if done well the highest and loudest bits should be around -19RMS to -17RMS therefore if done right u can get ur loudest bits to hit -10 - -12 RMS after mastering which is the sorta professional level that is required nowadays ]
done .
see the problem lies in : anyone can do this steps but not many people have the cultured or objective ear to weed out frequencies to narrow band level . unless u've trained heaps in golden ears or something .
The 1st thing i noticed when i sat down with the mastering engineer was that there are no specific rules to mastering . some use compression , some dont' , some use linMB , some don't , some use C4, i don't .
The idea of mastering is to enhance the quality of the recording/song so that it's loud enough and sounds good on most speakers .How this is achieved is entirely dependant on the source material that u have .
now can anyone help me with finding Andy's Mesa boogie settings ???
Regards
Roland
A Toolish Circle said:
Great tips, but be very careful here with this one; dynamics are an endangered species! If your "gain reduction" meter/LED/whatever stays on consistently for a significant amount of time, you're probably "finalising" too much... I guess it's a matter of personal taste, but I tend to think "less is more" with these types of effects; try to only get the big peaks, without smooshing everything else.
The thing that gets me the most--btw this will sound very novice--is how the meter on my mixes bounces up and down maybe a couple decibels while professionally mastered CDs are pretty steady, bounce maybe one or two dB. The green line in pro tools just "fuzzes" up and down with pro CDs while my mixes jump up and down like Robb Flynn during Machine Head's Burning Red tour.
Genius Gone Insane said:
I'm of the school of thought that this is a good thing, but if you want only one or two decibels of dynamic range, then by all means smash with a maximiser/finaliser/limiter.
EDIT: You shouldn't master with your eyes, though
. What matters is how it sounds through your monitors, not how it looks on your monitor.
Another thing is the fricken clip lights go off but I can't hear any clipping? How weary of that should you be? Should I trust my ears on that too?
black sugar
The Burninator
I'm not Bob Katz, but... Here's my $0.02:
Most importantly, get the best monitors you can afford and get your listening setup as dialed in as you can. That's all pretty relative to your particular situation so I'll leave it at that. If you have a decent D/A converter (say, an Audiophile 2496) that's a good enough starting point. You'll get more bang for the buck with better speakers.
Next, as someone who's getting more serious about mastering, I'd say that the biggest learning curve for me was (and still is) to learn how to balance my masters against other recordings on different systems, since I don't have a perfectly tuned listening room by any means.
That means getting really familiar with the characteristics of a few listening environments (monitors, car, home stereo, headphones) and how some specific source material translates across those environments. The source material should maybe represent some extremes as well as some nice balanced recordings.
The point being, what you're working on is never gonna sound exactly like anything else, so don't even bother with that. Just try to make it sound nice and balanced on a few different systems using other records as guidelines. Like if you know one album is particularly bright overall, use that for reference as your absolute limit for high end and back off your high end if you're getting too close.
Now for loudness... Same as with tonal balance, you're not going to get your stuff as loud as some records that are out there, nor should you want to. The loudness is totally relative (to the volume knob for starters) and the really "loud" records ironically end up sounding worse when you play them loud, and more often than not sound like total shit on good speakers at any volume.
The real power of a recording comes from the material, performances, tracking, and mixing. If you have a good mix, the mastering should just flatter it -- glue it all together, and give it some boost while respecting the intentions of the mix (if it's already good, don't fuck with it too much). It's obvious enough, but your master will generally be as good (and as loud) as what you're given to work with will allow.
Now having said that, of course you're going to try and make it loud. Shit, who are we kidding? Try to find the point where you're starting to sacrifice tone and dynamics and back it off a bit.
For processing you'll need a good compressor, broadband eq, and a limiter to start with. Absolutely, do not try to go crazy with a multi-band comp or a stereo imager right away, you'll spend lots of time making things worse.
Use a broadband comp and learn how threshold, attack, and release can affect a whole mix first. You probably want to stick with a low ratio in general. The broadband eq should be used sparingly to remove some mud or whatever. Try to cut rather than boost, of course. The limiter should prevent "over zero" clipping and dither (if necessary) as the last step. Use it to level off the dynamics of your recording so that it's consistent. Try to find the right threshold where you're slightly, but regularly reducing the peaks, which should mostly be snare hits.
Holy crap. Ok, I'll shut up now. /SPIEL
Most importantly, get the best monitors you can afford and get your listening setup as dialed in as you can. That's all pretty relative to your particular situation so I'll leave it at that. If you have a decent D/A converter (say, an Audiophile 2496) that's a good enough starting point. You'll get more bang for the buck with better speakers.
Next, as someone who's getting more serious about mastering, I'd say that the biggest learning curve for me was (and still is) to learn how to balance my masters against other recordings on different systems, since I don't have a perfectly tuned listening room by any means.
That means getting really familiar with the characteristics of a few listening environments (monitors, car, home stereo, headphones) and how some specific source material translates across those environments. The source material should maybe represent some extremes as well as some nice balanced recordings.
The point being, what you're working on is never gonna sound exactly like anything else, so don't even bother with that. Just try to make it sound nice and balanced on a few different systems using other records as guidelines. Like if you know one album is particularly bright overall, use that for reference as your absolute limit for high end and back off your high end if you're getting too close.
Now for loudness... Same as with tonal balance, you're not going to get your stuff as loud as some records that are out there, nor should you want to. The loudness is totally relative (to the volume knob for starters) and the really "loud" records ironically end up sounding worse when you play them loud, and more often than not sound like total shit on good speakers at any volume.
The real power of a recording comes from the material, performances, tracking, and mixing. If you have a good mix, the mastering should just flatter it -- glue it all together, and give it some boost while respecting the intentions of the mix (if it's already good, don't fuck with it too much). It's obvious enough, but your master will generally be as good (and as loud) as what you're given to work with will allow.
Now having said that, of course you're going to try and make it loud. Shit, who are we kidding? Try to find the point where you're starting to sacrifice tone and dynamics and back it off a bit.
For processing you'll need a good compressor, broadband eq, and a limiter to start with. Absolutely, do not try to go crazy with a multi-band comp or a stereo imager right away, you'll spend lots of time making things worse.
Use a broadband comp and learn how threshold, attack, and release can affect a whole mix first. You probably want to stick with a low ratio in general. The broadband eq should be used sparingly to remove some mud or whatever. Try to cut rather than boost, of course. The limiter should prevent "over zero" clipping and dither (if necessary) as the last step. Use it to level off the dynamics of your recording so that it's consistent. Try to find the right threshold where you're slightly, but regularly reducing the peaks, which should mostly be snare hits.
Holy crap. Ok, I'll shut up now. /SPIEL
Genius Gone Insane said:
It depends; short periods of clipping are unnoticable; our ears won't pick up on less than a couple of millisecs or so of digital clipping. In fact, checking certain modern CDs with a wave editor will reveal quite a number of points at which clipping occurs*; they're just too quick for us to notice. It's the prolonged periods that you have to watch out for, and also any quick clips that occur close together. You can get away with a few clips, though I imagine many, many, many engineers will disagree with me on this one.
Is your meter just clipping a bit, or is it hanging around in 0dB territory for a while? If the former, then that's why you can't hear it, and don't worry about it. Otherwise, don't be listening for just pops and clicks, but also a marked reduction in sound quality. Try purposely clipping the signal all to hell and note what it sounds like, and back off until that sound abates. Hope this helps a bit, this is really a tough area, with many differing opinions.
*Technical aside: I should note here that a CD cannot exceed 0dB, so technically the wave file won't actually clip. Certain editors, however, such as Wavelab will be able to interpolate where clipping has occured through fancy analysis that I don't really want to understand, but it somehow figures it out.
Genius Gone Insane said:
Not in the digital domain. It can't actually exceed 0dB, so "clipping" in this case is just audio noisily crashing into the 0dB ceiling. Actually clipping a speaker is different; you can do it by having them set way too loud (or your master fader, if you're using a hardware mixer), but if you're monitoring a digital output that's slightly below 0dB, and then it hits the ceiling, you're not hurting the monitors- or anything for that matter- you're just over the digital limit.
