Matter of Life and Death - DIY MASTERING

Demonstealer

Demonstealer

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Jun 30, 2003
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demonicresurrection.8m.com
Hello Everyone,


I'm in a strange place, I've been an engineer for long enough now but I've been one of those who follows the if it aint broke don't fix it type thing. But now I'm trying to be more of the do new things and get better.

So thats when all came tumbling down. So I'll just erase everything and say I'm a complete noob. Now I shall proceed.

I'm doing a project which I have to master myself because of the obvious reasons of money etc etc. Previously all my stuff has been mastered by either an L2 (I know I should be shot for this :p ) and then moved to PSP Vintage Warmer.

I always ran either on my master bus and mixed into that and I knew EXACTLY what the end product was sounding like which worked for me. This time I'm trying to

a. Mix and master separately
b. Do more than slap on the L2 and/or PSP vintage warmer.


So here lie my problems.

1. What do with my masterbus when I mix? I already tried a light L2 with some EQ boost and in certain songs my snare went for a toss etc etc which I posted a thread about. Also should I be mixign into any limiter etc? Because then when I master everything changes a large amount.

2. What can I do in the mastering process apart from limiting and doing everything to 'get my loudness'???

I can also post a few clips if anyone wants.

I'm be grateful for any help because I REALLY need it.

Cheers!
 
Demonstealer said:
Hello Everyone,


I'm in a strange place, I've been an engineer for long enough now but I've been one of those who follows the if it aint broke don't fix it type thing. But now I'm trying to be more of the do new things and get better.

So thats when all came tumbling down. So I'll just erase everything and say I'm a complete noob. Now I shall proceed.

I'm doing a project which I have to master myself because of the obvious reasons of money etc etc. Previously all my stuff has been mastered by either an L2 (I know I should be shot for this :p ) and then moved to PSP Vintage Warmer.

I always ran either on my master bus and mixed into that and I knew EXACTLY what the end product was sounding like which worked for me. This time I'm trying to

a. Mix and master separately
b. Do more than slap on the L2 and/or PSP vintage warmer.


So here lie my problems.

1. What do with my masterbus when I mix? I already tried a light L2 with some EQ boost and in certain songs my snare went for a toss etc etc which I posted a thread about. Also should I be mixign into any limiter etc? Because then when I master everything changes a large amount.

2. What can I do in the mastering process apart from limiting and doing everything to 'get my loudness'???

I can also post a few clips if anyone wants.

I'm be grateful for any help because I REALLY need it.

Cheers!
Click to expand...

l1 and l2 should be used to destroy snares, never to master music

if you really just want simple, no knowledge required, loudness. use gclip

seriously, its easy. make it the very last plugin in your chain (insert 8 on cubase) and turn the gain up until you start clipping the mix

mix into your mastering chain... if you're mixing and mastering yourself, thats the advantage you get! you get to hear the final shit as you're messing with it. people who master else where dont get this luxury, so use it!
 
Is it a general thing to mix into the mastering chain when you can ? I always thought it would be better to mix, and when you are happy of your mix, master it ?
 
The L2 works if you are only going for max -1.5dB threshold. Use some sort of clipper before and you are fine.

I usualy start with the waves ssl comp->api 2500 (old mode works like soft clipper) ->Limiter.

Never try to get the volume out of the limiter and always make sure that your mix works at loud volume. If you have an overpowering Bass (from the kick and Bass-guitar, low-end from the guitars and useless low-end from the vocals) your mix will never work and never will become loud.
 
I usually mix into my mastering chain, or at least an approximation of it, so I can see how badly its going to fuck my mix up. Be careful with levels though, you could accidentally start going like +5db into it and wonder why it sounds so terrible.
 
joeymusicguy said:
l1 and l2 should be used to destroy snares, never to master music

if you really just want simple, no knowledge required, loudness. use gclip

seriously, its easy. make it the very last plugin in your chain (insert 8 on cubase) and turn the gain up until you start clipping the mix

mix into your mastering chain... if you're mixing and mastering yourself, thats the advantage you get! you get to hear the final shit as you're messing with it. people who master else where dont get this luxury, so use it!
Click to expand...

First I mix without any mastering chain.
After I think the mix works, I put some mastering chain on and if everything sounds good I bounce the song and open a new project.

I dont know why, but I always have the feeling that my mastering sounds better if I do it on the single stereo-PCM and not in the mix.

Maybe this has something to do with CPU-usage?
 
Morgan you signatur chick is SOOOOOOO UNREAL SEXY!!!!!!!!!
I hated her as Jack Bauers daughter but she blows my mind in Captivity (worst movie but she was soooooo sexy)

Now I´m watching all her movies because she is just THAT SWEET
 
Here's a stupid question; what does a clipper do? If it has something to do with loudness why is its name a 'clipper'?
 
i stopped mixing and mastering in the same session when i started to get into m/s processing.

apart from that, just get the mix as good as you can, bounce it and leave it alone for a few days to regain some objectivity.
then start a new session, load the stereo file, and ask yourself "what is wrong with the sound?". if your mix was good that won't be a lot obviously!
i'd start of with the usual 2 gclips / limiter thing, using the gclips to get your loudness and maybe taking off half a db from the limiter to squeeze it even more (depends on the music really). you can also do some slight EQ adjustments IF YOU FEEL THAT IT'S NECESSARY. i really like to keep it simple. if there's more to do than maybe just a db of eq here and there, go back and change your mix. easy as that.
 
sopulurn said:
Here's a stupid question; what does a clipper do? If it has something to do with loudness why is its name a 'clipper'?
Click to expand...

Really simple : It cuts any transient loud enough to go beyong its clipping value.

Take a snare : when it hits, it goes to -6dB (for example) and then gets back to -20dB for the rest of its sounds, body, sustain etc.
If you set the clipper to clip at -10, then it will cut the waveform brutally at -10 (so : before it reaches -6 it is stopped). So the snare track will never hit above -10dB. The fact is that such a quick transient is not so important sonically. If you don't clip too much, it will sound the same as without the clipper to your ears.

The goal is that your track will get less high in the dBmeter, and so, it won't hit the limiter as early as without the clipper. This way, you can bring the snare up without making it destroy the mix because it his the limiter, and sitll, the track will sound 99% the same.

You can use it in the mastering chain so that it clips the highest transients, giving you a few db more to play with.

hope it helps
 
I hope we'll have some great tips in this thread, because I'm going to DIY master my band's demo when I'm done mixing it. I know it's impossible to sound 'good', but I want to master it as well as I possibly can. I mean, it's still a demo, and we've already decided there's no need to send it anywhere for mastering. Just to get some gigs, and if we're lucky, to get us signed.

Thanks LeSedna, it does help!
 
I might use PSP Saturator on the masterbus, just on Tape3 on about the default 20% depending on input levels. If I use a compressor, its if I want pumping, otherwise my tracks are fairly controlled before they hit the masterbus and I've never got a masterbus compressor to improve the mix.
 
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