About to mastering my album and need a quick guide!

Chili, I am in a similar situation. Not as many time as you but... one and a half year writing and recording 10 tunes. Beside that there was my total lack of experience with microphone (partially because I am not a singer and it was my first attempt and partially because I don't have any knowledge about how to use it - position, distance, pre-amp setup, etc) so everything was very empiric: I just put the microphone in front of me and after a two or three tests when the voice seemed to be 'good' I just recorded the whole track a few times and that was it. After that I just started working on what I had graphically auto-tuning and applying a bunch of plugins until the crap sound minimally decent. Seems scary, I know... but it worked for my expectations. Finally I had the 'candy store syndrome' that was when I found myself in front of unlimited plugins, digital keyboards, virtual instruments, stomp boxes, amps, cabinets and drum sets! LoL!

Man, my first CD is really a mess but believe it or not I am very happy and proud about it! :D

Anyway, at the very end I decided to save $50 and 'mastered' (LoL!) it myself. Basically I only leveled the volume of the tracks to make they sound similar just playing with the gain knob of a compressor/limiter preset AND applied minimal EQ. Aside a small EQ problem in one of the tunes and a couple of mixing mistakes it turned out better than I supposed. I think that in a few days after the fixes it will be good to go (burn the CDs).

:)
 
My last CD took about 4 years to write and record all the songs. That's a lot of variation in recording and mixing over the years. Once I got about 16 songs, I picked the ones going on the CD, then I picked a "golden" song. The one I thought sounded the best and represented me. I saved all the settings of each channel for that song then applied them to all the channels in the remaining songs. At least for the channels that were similar. Lead vocals, same settings. Acoustic guitar, same settings... for each track on each song. Then I remixed each song, going back to reference the golden song. They came out pretty close. Then I sent it off to a mastering studio.

If you can, you should something like that first.

I never thought about that. Good idea Chili !! Aside from the fact that many of my older tracks were done with different equipment and instruments than I use now........some of the "best" channel settings could still be applicable to all of the similar tracks..........and might give my overall sound a little more uniformity and cohesion as an "album".

As for this $5 master debate...........the discussion has gotten very far afield..........in so much as tedious logic is being applied to present a case for a $5 master. I say......let the results speak for themselves. Let us hear the before and after. We can decide for ourselves and put a number on how much we think it might be worth.
 
i wouldn't do anything 'QUICK', when it comes down to mastering a project you might have spent months on.....
 
when it comes down to mastering a project you might have spent months on.....

I just wanted do level the tracks among themselves (that's what I meant for 'mastering') and just ended deciding to do it myself. It is taking a few days to level them and listen to the whole set to check if it is passable. It is not getting bad at all and I am happy that I didn't waste $50.

You are right about take the proper time for mastering after all the recording and mixing stuff (that actually I took years and not months!) but at this point I am really done with it. I cannot keep more time over that and honestly I think that my recording and mixing doesn't deserve all that care. Personally I think that my work in this first CD is a mess... It was a lot of crazy experimentation while I learned how to use Reaper, plugins and VSTs writings my songs at the same time and trying to pretend to be a singer... Ouch... what a mess!

:thumbs up:
 
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He ment not investing 'months' on a proj... then to 'go quickie' on the mastering...?
Hey, yeah, sorry folks! I just read it too fast. I am not having a good day in the job anyway. Sorry again! I just fixed my answer in the post above!

:p
 
Did you master the tracks on the album to any particular loudness standard?

Yeah, to my one. LoL, just kidding, I don't know what this 'loudness standard' means. I just leveled the tracks to the same volume using my ears as judgement. I don't know a different way of doing it.

:)
 
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