EQing, hard limiting, and compressing

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westg8

New member
I have a few questions pertaining to mastering some songs my band has done. As this is for demo purposes, I don't feel we need to spend the money to send anything to a mastering house yet, but I would like to get the best sound possible.

I've mixed one song down to a single waveform, and I would like to add some equalization, as well as a little compression and hard limiting. Since I have never really done this before, what is a good starting point for equalization? Most of the songs are in the rock genre, with distorted guitars and all. What should I boost and cut (anyone using CEP, if you could tell me a preset that i could start from, that would be great) ? Any numbers would help tremendously, and then I can tweak those numbers a bit to get a good sound pertaining to my particular songs.

Also, in what order should I do the compressing, hard limiting and equalization. My senses tell me to eq first, then compress, and then hard limit. Is this an acceptable order?

Steven


p.s. I'd just like to say this board has helped me tremondously, and it's a essential spot on the web for any novice starting out in home recording. Thanks.
 
I've done quite a bit of mastering but I'm a protools user. So I don't know much about CEP. I'll try to give you a generall overview on some things to at least give you an idea of what to do.

You don't usually want to put an EQ on first, since any compression you do will most likely undo a lot of it. Not only does compression/limiting flatten dynamic response, it also tends to flatten frequency response.

Here's the order that I follow. First, I will work on getting the master compression set so that it sounds as natural as possible while bringing out some of the nuances of the mix and keeping the dynamic flow of the song. Next, I'll run it out of protools into an outboard limiter or preamp so that I can work on getting the loudness I want while EQing the returning signal to adjust any problem frequencies until I get a fairly level frequency curve. Then I make any additional adjustments to taste.

one thing you might need is some kind of Spectal Analyzer or Visualization plugin. I use SpectraFoo.
 
Thanks for the information. I'll definitely try to EQ before compressing. It seems I have a lot of midrange in my mixes, so i'll try and boost the low and high ends a bit. I'm still not quite sure about how much to compress though. It seems to me that not too much compression should be put on a final mix, but I don't know.


Steven
 
For master compression, I agree. You definitely don't want to over-do it. I usually have a ratio around 2.5 with a quick attack and a release around 600 ms. Your threshold will depend on the mix, of course. One trick i've used for finding threshold is to crank the ratio up as far as it will go and then start turning the threshold down and leave it just above the point it starts to sound unnatural. Then, you put the rest of your settings back where you want. if you have a knee setting, you'll probably want it to be soft.

By the way, what kind of monitoring are you using? If you don't have flat-resoponse, near-field monitors, it might effect what frequencies you are hearing.
 
Thanks for the reply. As for monitors, I don't really have very good ones, so I usually make mp3s and download it from my friend's computers to see how it sounds from various speakers.

I'm starting to get the hang of compressing and eq'ing, however I'm not sure about hard limiting. How much should I limit? For example, I have a file that has a few spikes that go above -3 db. However, the waveform becomes fairly solid at around -6 db, . Where should I limit? Cool Edit has a 'Gather Statistics' button where it tells you what percentage gets clipped at a certain level. What would be a good percentage to clip so I could then normalize and maximize volume? I know it differs from person to person, but what would be a good range to start in? Or am I way off with this thinking? Thanks a lot.

Steven
 
It really depends on how good of a limiter or limiting software you have. If the limiting is too harsh, you might only get away with 3 db or less. However, on the other end of the spectrum, there are elop limiters that can limit the crap out something before you even start to hear it because of their quick attack and more subtle release. You just have to use your ears. The basic purpose of limiting in mastering is to get as hot a mix as you can without clipping. I'd say, just limit it as much as you can. when you start to hear the effects, you've gone too far.
 
ok, thanks for the reply. I guess I'm just really paranoid I'm limiting or compressing too much. The band keeps complaining how quiet our stuff is compared with other songs, so I think I'm always tempted to limit too much. I can hear the effects of the limiting when I do it some extreme amount, but I'm always afraid I won't pick up inconsistencies when I'm limiting mildly. I'm using db audioware's master limiting plug-in over the one cool edit has. If you have any more suggestions, that'd be great. Thanks for your help.

Steven
 
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