This song is such a bitch to master, need your assistance!

[Mattayus]

My band has this song that's been kickin around for a few years now, it was a bitch to master when it was just a demo, and it's even worse now it's a fully fledged album track!

Basically the problem is that it's very peaky in places (I dont think any one instrument is to blame there, I think it's accumulative of the track itself) and then there's a quiet bit in the track and that's when all hell breaks loose. The track starts coming up in volume, dropping in volume, pumping, being a cunt, when the rest of the track is fine.

Will uploaded an unmastered version of it in a moment so you can hear the track and possibly throw an educated guess as to why I'm so shit at mastering it, when all the rest of our tracks are totally consistent

EDIT: Here's the song

http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=9215816&q=hi

It's after the solo, around the 2:23 mark when things go to shit when I try to master it

 

[Williamn]

it sounds kinda weird..
even tho im no master engineer I would like to take a look at it for learning purpose

 

[B36arin]

Sorry, I didn't really understand if the problem is that there's a heavy part of the song that's troublesome or if it's the balance between parts that's difficult and the weak parts wimp out when you push the louder parts too much. Either way, have you tried splitting the song up into several regions and mastering them individually?

 

[Morgan C]

have you tried splitting the song up into several regions and mastering them individually?

 

[Mattayus]

Sorry yeah, perhaps I wasn't clear;

The heavy part of the song is fine. Chugs along nicely, heavy heavy smashy smashy, then the quiet/acoustic breakdown kinda thing comes in and the song just goes to shit, the volume starts to spike, the clean guitars come up to an ear splitting volume, then drop back down again when bass comes in etc, it's just a mess.

However, you've kind of answered my question which (in a round about kinda way) was - What's the protocol for a song that has lots of different parts like this - do you automate? split it up?

I'm guessing I could take the heavy part of the song, mix it to a group track and mix that down as one wav, take all the quiet elements and mix them down separately two, then smash them together in a master project?

Just uploading the song now so you can hear it...

 

[Morgan C]

Why are you compressing so much? Don't compress more than like 2-3db unless you REALLY know what you're doing and have REALLY good gear. If you're compressing only 2-3db then you wouldn't have these problems with dynamics.

 

[Mattayus]

^ Posted the song in the first post now for anyone who wants to hear it ^

Why are you compressing so much? Don't compress more than like 2-3db unless you REALLY know what you're doing and have REALLY good gear. If you're compressing only 2-3db then you wouldn't have these problems with dynamics.

I'm not really using an OTT amount of compression - or at least it doesn't feel like I am. I know that's clearly the issue though, when the quiet bit comes in the compression is relaxing and bringing the volume up. Perhaps I just need to break down my mastering for this one and start over again, keep it fairly bare bones.

 

[Habsburgs]

Get rid of that section if its such a problem

OT: Morgan.. you have the best avatars b00bs thread

 

[Morgan C]

I don't hear an issue. Your acoustics guitars are popping like crazy though, you need to compress better or limit them or something. Mix is sounding good though.

 

[Mattayus]

Thanks, that's unmastered btw - just checking.
I need to re-record those cleans, but record DI this time. Those aren't the final takes, they're still rough from the scratch track just using crappy podxt clean tone which is super compressed. I would mic up my acoustic but... we use 7 strings and I don't have a 7 string acoustic dammit!

 

[Plankis]

yeah you're compressing/limiting too much. But if you think that the heavy parts sounds great and don't want to change the settings you could automate the clean part some dBs lower. Lowering it as much dBs as you're compressing might be a good start.

 

[Mattayus]

Ok listen to the clip again, it's now mastered, let me know your thoughts!

 

[B36arin]

There are people who do this you know. Some people use automation, some guys(probably mostly the older guys) simply split the songs into different parts if the dynamics change a lot and master the parts "separately". The settings obviously won't vary that much, but it can help you control a song's dynamics if there are parts that vary a whole lot. I was at a mastering seminar with Peter in de Betou last weekend and he said that he usually prefers to split tracks up instead of using automation.

 

[JayB]

I second that Morgan C has a great avatar !