Ok, so you're sitting there with a freshly printed mix that you're hired to master or you're just getting ready to upload it to your bands site and need it to SMACK! So what do you do??
Well, the bad news is that it does take you 5-7 years to get really really good at mastering, mixing or whatever it is you're shooting for, and with the few tools you actually use in a mastering situation it takes a lot of time to really understand them on a deeper level and how to use them all together in order to maximize your results in such a limited situation as mastering really is.
It's truly the art of compromise!
Now the first thing is to ask yourself a basic set of questions...
Question Nr.1 : What would you have done differently?
This is were objectivity comes in since if you are the person who mixed it, how can you sit there and ask yourself this question and even come up with a good answer?
Question Nr.2 : What were they shooting for?
Here you need to assess what the mix engineer was really shooting for to be able to adjust the aim accordingly.
This exercise makes you compare the mix you're hearing to the very best masters that you have heard and recorded in your minds eye. What you want to do is compare the mix to the best ones you've ever heard in the genre.
Now this might seem a bit reversed since it would be more logical in asking question nr 2 first, right?
Well one of the biggest mistakes people make when mastering is that they're trying to pull the mix in a direction it was not meant to go, even if the reference is very clear to you what they were shooting for. That's why it's important to first ask yourself "what would I have done different to simply make this better" rather than "what would I have done differently to make it sound more like X".
You then use a combination of Q1 and Q2 to guide your final decisions, where Q1 has priority.
Question Nr.3 : What tools will I need and in what order should I apply them to accomplish this task?
Well, you need your EQ, compressor, multiband processor, limiter, stereo processor, harmonic generator... and pretty much everything should fall into place. Isn't mastering just sooo simple? :Spin:
The truth is that it isn't much more complicated than that. If you look at a package like iZotope Ozone 4, you get pretty much everything you could ever need in a mastering chain. Only question is, do you like the sound of it? To understand what tools you need you also need to know what it is you're trying to accomplish and what the major challenges are. No use in trying to cut down a tree with a screwdriver, right?
I have 5 EQ's that I use for different tasks, 4 different broadband compressors, 4 different multiband tools, 6 different limiters, 3 harmonic generators / distortion devices, 3 different stereo tools... which they all do a particular job better than the other in certain situations. So you need to figure out YOUR palette of specific tools which takes a HUUUUUUUUGE amount of trial & error to do and is a never ending process for an ME. Since you don't use many tools... again you always strive to get the very best out of them.
Now for a golden rule of pretty much any production process and a sneak peak into the next chapter.
Remember the basic principle of...
Take care of issues first, THEN enhance!
If you start enhancing first, like you'd want to add some hi-end there, use that compressor here and that limiter right around there... you're probably also enhancing flaws of the mix and if you start to take care of them after the fact you're affecting the whole chain and counteracting certain processes.
The most basic examples of this is to remove unwanted frequencies from a signal before compressing, not the other way around. Use a De-Esser before boosting hi-end, not the other way around. If you're not doing this already... try it out and your productions will skyrocket in perceived quality.
Well, the bad news is that it does take you 5-7 years to get really really good at mastering, mixing or whatever it is you're shooting for, and with the few tools you actually use in a mastering situation it takes a lot of time to really understand them on a deeper level and how to use them all together in order to maximize your results in such a limited situation as mastering really is.
It's truly the art of compromise!
Now the first thing is to ask yourself a basic set of questions...
Question Nr.1 : What would you have done differently?
This is were objectivity comes in since if you are the person who mixed it, how can you sit there and ask yourself this question and even come up with a good answer?
Question Nr.2 : What were they shooting for?
Here you need to assess what the mix engineer was really shooting for to be able to adjust the aim accordingly.
This exercise makes you compare the mix you're hearing to the very best masters that you have heard and recorded in your minds eye. What you want to do is compare the mix to the best ones you've ever heard in the genre.
Now this might seem a bit reversed since it would be more logical in asking question nr 2 first, right?
Well one of the biggest mistakes people make when mastering is that they're trying to pull the mix in a direction it was not meant to go, even if the reference is very clear to you what they were shooting for. That's why it's important to first ask yourself "what would I have done different to simply make this better" rather than "what would I have done differently to make it sound more like X".
You then use a combination of Q1 and Q2 to guide your final decisions, where Q1 has priority.
Question Nr.3 : What tools will I need and in what order should I apply them to accomplish this task?
Well, you need your EQ, compressor, multiband processor, limiter, stereo processor, harmonic generator... and pretty much everything should fall into place. Isn't mastering just sooo simple? :Spin:
The truth is that it isn't much more complicated than that. If you look at a package like iZotope Ozone 4, you get pretty much everything you could ever need in a mastering chain. Only question is, do you like the sound of it? To understand what tools you need you also need to know what it is you're trying to accomplish and what the major challenges are. No use in trying to cut down a tree with a screwdriver, right?
I have 5 EQ's that I use for different tasks, 4 different broadband compressors, 4 different multiband tools, 6 different limiters, 3 harmonic generators / distortion devices, 3 different stereo tools... which they all do a particular job better than the other in certain situations. So you need to figure out YOUR palette of specific tools which takes a HUUUUUUUUGE amount of trial & error to do and is a never ending process for an ME. Since you don't use many tools... again you always strive to get the very best out of them.
Now for a golden rule of pretty much any production process and a sneak peak into the next chapter.
Remember the basic principle of...
Take care of issues first, THEN enhance!
If you start enhancing first, like you'd want to add some hi-end there, use that compressor here and that limiter right around there... you're probably also enhancing flaws of the mix and if you start to take care of them after the fact you're affecting the whole chain and counteracting certain processes.
The most basic examples of this is to remove unwanted frequencies from a signal before compressing, not the other way around. Use a De-Esser before boosting hi-end, not the other way around. If you're not doing this already... try it out and your productions will skyrocket in perceived quality.
