Now I know a lot of you aren't mastering yourself, as it should be, but I know a lot of you are, so I'm just wondering how everyone goes about mastering heavy music, with all the instruments competing.
Mastering
- Thread starter Nauru
- Start date
TheDriller
Member
If the instruments are competing, then there is something wrong with the mix,
and that needs to be addressed before you even contemplate mastering.
and that needs to be addressed before you even contemplate mastering.
mick thompson
AKA: Ross Canpolat! SM!
all i can add is make sure everything is low in your mix, if your clipping your not leaving any headroom for mastering compression etc which is really going to distort your tracks and you'll completely loose clarity of all instruments in the low mid and high range.
so if your finding instruments competing it could very well be a mix problem with parts clipping on your vu's. just keep everything nice and low on your desk/daw.
try using some frequency analysis too on some of your tracks. for example if your bass is pushing a lot of near sub sonic freq's which you don't require take them out of your mix to free up the low end for dynamics of your toms and kick drums. same goes for your other instruments and vocal recordings.
i dont know if anyone else does that but i always low cut and high cut example my vocal tracks where the singer is incapable of pitching. i find it cleans up my mixes a lot more. and make sure you dont have instruments in competing ranges. example your guitar tracks shouldn't be pumping near sub freq's so if they are take them out to free it up for other bass heavy instruments
so if your finding instruments competing it could very well be a mix problem with parts clipping on your vu's. just keep everything nice and low on your desk/daw.
try using some frequency analysis too on some of your tracks. for example if your bass is pushing a lot of near sub sonic freq's which you don't require take them out of your mix to free up the low end for dynamics of your toms and kick drums. same goes for your other instruments and vocal recordings.
i dont know if anyone else does that but i always low cut and high cut example my vocal tracks where the singer is incapable of pitching. i find it cleans up my mixes a lot more. and make sure you dont have instruments in competing ranges. example your guitar tracks shouldn't be pumping near sub freq's so if they are take them out to free it up for other bass heavy instruments
I agree with what mick and some others are saying about taking care of a lot of things in the mix. The low end is the big deal with instruments competing, so I tend to notch out around 80 Hz in the bass guitar to make room for the kick's "oomph". It's also important like mick said to high pass some things like guitar and let the bass guitar carry the low end. Remember that there are no set rules for mixing, and if something sounds too bass heavy, then attenuate some bass from it. Just because a bass guitar is a low end instrument, it doesn't mean it can't afford to lose some bottom sometimes and get it's presence through some upper end harmonics. Hope this makes sense.
I did search mastering in this forum and didn't find much on my question, but i've been reading around a lot more and found that I was mixing way to loud, just like you guys said. Sorry for the repeat question but thanks for all your input.
