Need Some Advice!

keithersgsx2003

New member
Hey guys,

It's been awhile since I've posted....you know...life.

Anyway, I've purchased a new studio that is working great for me but I could use some pointers on specific mastering techniques for my style.

What would you guys do: Eq, Stereo Image, Dynamics, Limiting, etc...

I'm just doing this by ear, but it would be nice to learn a technique per say to hone my skill a little better.

The song I posted is Small Town USA. I've mastered it to the best of my ability. Thank you very much for your help/advice, it's greatly appreciated!

Respectfully

Keith
 

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Long day, tired ears and what not so just casually listening at relatively low volume.

The first thing that stands out like mad is that there's something weird going on in the low end. Like a Haas filter on the bass guitar or something. That's most likely a mix issue (unless you're using Ozone or something like that, in which case all bets are off).
 
I like the room sounds/reverbs and seems EQ'd well. For my taste though, dynamics are way too smashed and there's some weird phase issues - mostly with the bass like MM mentioned. Sounds like you used a stereo widener and went too far with it.
 
Sounds way too over processed by something. I also hope you are not trying to master with Ozone and going way too far...

Post the recording before master. That is the only way to give insight into what is going on here.
 
Do people tinker with the stereo image at the mastering stage? I consider that something to be done when mixing.

This ^, I went through the image stage once and then realized it seemed to mess things up more then improve them.

Alan.
 
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Do people tinker with the stereo image at the mastering stage? I consider that something to be done when mixing.
I'd say (1) minor adjustments / enhancements on occasion to help put a bunch of different recordings into a more common space (2) processing either only the sum or difference signal (for whatever reason -- de-essing -- the mid if the vocal, the side if the cymbals just for example) which "by design" is going to affect the image to some extent (3) -- Uh... I had a third one in mind that I "misplaced" by the time I typed the first two.

Again, unless we're talking about Ozone or something - The maul-the-band Haas filter on that thing... In over 20 years of doing this (and another 15 of engineering in general), I can count on zero hands how many times I wanted to put a Haas filter on low end content. On the flip side, I can't even imagine how many hands I'd need to count the number of "Ozone'd" mixes I had to have de-Ozone'd because someone used a preset - that had a Haas filter - on the low end - and didn't notice how much it screwed up the low end.

Sorry - I tend to go off the deep end when I start talking about Ozone...
 
I'd say (1) minor adjustments / enhancements on occasion to help put a bunch of different recordings into a more common space (2) processing either only the sum or difference signal (for whatever reason -- de-essing -- the mid if the vocal, the side if the cymbals just for example) which "by design" is going to affect the image to some extent (3) -- Uh... I had a third one in mind that I "misplaced" by the time I typed the first two.

Again, unless we're talking about Ozone or something - The maul-the-band Haas filter on that thing... In over 20 years of doing this (and another 15 of engineering in general), I can count on zero hands how many times I wanted to put a Haas filter on low end content. On the flip side, I can't even imagine how many hands I'd need to count the number of "Ozone'd" mixes I had to have de-Ozone'd because someone used a preset - that had a Haas filter - on the low end - and didn't notice how much it screwed up the low end.

Sorry - I tend to go off the deep end when I start talking about Ozone...

I hear you man. I am also a Ozone hater.

I don't get how that got so popular. Maybe because it falsify gives users too much to work with?
 
I've always said - It's only as dangerous as the person using it. That said - it's pretty dangerous.

It stands to reason anyone looking for a quick and easy tool like that won't know what they're listening for. Consequently, anyone who knows what they're listening for won't use a tool like that.
 
The bass guitar is stereo ... eep. It can work, but keep the low end below 100hz out of the side channels.

The best tip I can give is to use an RMS meter like Voxengo Span or some sort of LUFS meter and keep the crest factor to something like 8 at the loudest. As it stands, the song is so smashed that it's distorting most bands. This you don't want. The limiter is sucking the life out of the song. Plus the more you smash it into a square wave, the more it will clip and ruin your audio when converted to MP3, m4a etc.

It's OK to back off on the loudness -- almost no one listens to CDs anymore. Youtube, Spotify, Tidal, Itunes etc will just turn it down if it's louder than their set standards... so you might as well save the trouble and make the final master dynamically loud instead of square wave loud. It will sound objectively better.
 
I almost NEVER listen to mixes, leave alone comment on them. Mainly because I have no qualification to do so and never did have and am also seriously mutton! But! I get very bad sibilance on the vocal.

Not a WMP artefact because it is there on Abobe Aud' and on my AKG K92s and a pair of cheap JVC foldables.

As you were.

Dave.
 
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