Do it yourself mastering

S

Shack

New member
Can anyone please recommend what software I need to get to be able to do mastering myself in my studio please?

Thanks
 
Most any software will do (i.e ProTools, Logic, etc.) ... It's the skills you should be worrying about... Get ready for the replies... Maybe you should do a search.. Cause people ask this question a lot..

Take care...
 
peritus said:
Most any software will do (i.e ProTools, Logic, etc.) ... It's the skills you should be worrying about... Get ready for the replies... Maybe you should do a search.. Cause people ask this question a lot..

Take care...
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Thanks. The reason I am looking into this is that I always have a problem at the mastering stage. I go into the suite and am told the mixes sound great etc and then when I get back into the car or home with the finished stuff it just doesn't sound right and eventually after going back a few times, I get it right. Problem is you can't really argue with the engineers when you hear something at the session cos they know their speakers.

So what I want to do is see whether I can do anything better myself and if not, I will stick with the pros, it's just I keep hearing more and more people doing it themselves and got curious. Also, I go into the some suites and all the guy is doing is using the same protools that I recorded on in the first place and it just makes me wonder.
 
Understood.... Not only does the engineer know his speakers... He, most likely, knows his environment (the control room he is in), just as well... Furthermore, he has a ear tuned from experience, to bring out the best in your recording, the equipment (a lot of pros use outboard stuff [i hear] to get the best sound), and skills (aka when to do what)....

Now... I know it's a downer.. And it is to me too... but it would be really difficult to get the results that one of them could produce, in our own domain....

I'm not an expert and am admittedly repeating some other people's philosophy... But, it really does make sense....

I've heard a mastering engineer described as a person who immediately hears the flaws and/or ways to make the recording better... oh yeah.. and this person must also have the ability to carry out the necessary changes to perfect the recording....

Okay.. I'm out of my element discussing this... Someone else would be better to continue and/or critique my post... than myself...
 
The big point is that you must have experience and know-how....and good equipment to boot (though the tools prolly make up the lesser percent of the group of requirements)
 
Hi

There is some really good plugins available today.

I dont recommend mastering your own mixes but if you must then at least have

a long enough break from the song to become objective once again.

If you have a decent set of monitors and some good plugs like UAD then there is

no reason you cant do a great job yourself.
 
pingu said:
Hi

There is some really good plugins available today, but if you are thinking of mastering the tunes you have mixed then it is a good idea to let it go for the mastering.

If you have a decent set of monitors and some good plugs like UAD then there is no reason you cant do a great job yourself.
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I agree with this... and it, in a way, agrees with my posts...
 
I'd just like to add that 've noticed that a lot of people refer to the 'experience' of the mastering engineer, but trust me, I have been in one or two studios that the guy has been barely out of his pampers and he introduces himself as the mastering engineer. They are not all that experienced and I wonder whether with my experience, I won't do better than a trainee who's using my songs for his learning curve!
 
Sounds like you would be better served by using a mastering house that actually knows how to listen to/please the client.
 
Would you trust yourself to rewire your house if you knew nothing about electrics...even if you had the correct tools? :eek:


I hear mixes all the time people have mangled with Izotope and T-Racks thinking it's good because it sounds louder than the original mix.

9 times out of 10 it's squashed/mangled/smashed to a pulp and borderline clipping if not distorting too
 
LemonTree said:
Would you trust yourself to rewire your house if you knew nothing about electrics...even if you had the correct tools? :eek:


I hear mixes all the time people have mangled with Izotope and T-Racks thinking it's good because it sounds louder than the original mix.

9 times out of 10 it's squashed/mangled/smashed to a pulp and borderline clipping if not distorting too
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Problem is that I have had many bad experiences with the so-called experts! I have always left the mastering to the pros , going to the extent of not even having any compression on my final mixes, just to give them some headroom to work with, but after my last project, an album, got mashed up, I started to consider the alternatives, one of which is to have a go at doing it myself. I am also toying with the idea of sending my stuff to one of those inexpensive places where you email them the track and they do it, just to find a solution to this mastering problem.
 
Mastering is a *process*, a set of procedures. It's not a piece of hardware or software.

Do-it-yourself mastering can be done perfectly well in software as simple as Audacity with the same gear and plugins one uses for their mixing stage. It's just a matter of knowing what needs to be done in the mastering stage.

You need to know how to critically listen to your mixes and compare them in your head to what you imagine the "master" should sound like. When you have that difference between what it sounds like now and what it should sound like figured out, then it's a matter of applying your tools and technique to massage the rough mixdown into a polished master.

G.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
Do-it-yourself mastering can be done perfectly well in software as simple as Audacity with the same gear and plugins one uses for their mixing stage. It's just a matter of knowing what needs to be done in the mastering stage.
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Also consider how you are burning your CDs--the programs designed for mastering have lots of clever tools for doing nifty things, and you should be using high quality media and testing the CDs for errors.
 
bblackwood said:
Sounds like you would be better served by using a mastering house that actually knows how to listen to/please the client.
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AMEN!

I tell you, on the occasions that I DO use somebody else to master, usually because they have a superior analog signal chain I want the music to run through, and I sort of trust their ears, at the HUGE freakin' prices these guys charge, when I ask for something, I don't mind them possibly suggesting against it, but they better damn well change it if I make that call.

Truthfully, I have found mastering engineers to be the most snobbish/condescending/know-it-all/elitest group of marginal engineers in the industry! A fucking tracking engineer would NEVER last more than a day with attitudes that some of these ME's display, and trust me, it takes EVERY BIT as much skill to be a competent tracking engineer.

If you are PAYING the guy, and you want something changed because you don't like it, tell them to change it. If they won't, get your material back and move on. If they spend too much of your time arguing whether you should change something you want changed, pack up and go elsewhere. Life is too short, and ME's are too expensive for that kind of crap.

I recently mixed a bands CD. I was very proud of the mixes I did, and made some decisions about a few things based on the fact that certain parts were executed VERY poorly, and didn't want to show that off at all in the mix. The band came back with wanting to turn those parts up. No argument here! And certainly, I can't say "Hey man, I turned you down because you butchered that part of the song!" and still expected them to want to come back. Right or wrong, if the customer asks for it, I indeed should double check to make sure that is what they really want, and possibly in a tactful way suggest why they should leave it alone, but, in the end, they pay me, and my job is to make them happy!

Now, I am also a fan of you trying this out on your own. You can probably get into Wavelabs Essential and Waves Masters Bundle for about what two average mastering sessions cost. If that make financial sense to you, go for it! I have tried all the plugin's for mastering, and I think the Waves product does the best job overall. It STILL isn't as good as some analog offerings, but it will get you there.

Also, if insane loud levels aren't desired, I think you could do okay with a UAD-1 card, and get Precision Limiter and Precision EQ for mastering.

Good luck.
 
LemonTree said:
Would you trust yourself to rewire your house if you knew nothing about electrics...even if you had the correct tools? :eek:
Click to expand...

I rewired much of my own house and it hasn't burnt down yet! Now granted, I researched what I was doing carefully, read books and stuff on the internet, and paid careful attention to what I had seen electricians do in the past. I also had my work inspected and approved by the city electrical inspector.

I think a person CAN master their own stuff if they're wiling to be very careful and patient with what they're doing. Give it a try, compare your results to quality commercial recordings on multiple systems, and be prepared to keep going back and trying again. Getting other experienced people to critique your work along the way wouldn't be a bad idea either. Obviously, there is more to it than finding the best plug in to make it louder, and I assume that a lot of people just do that and make things worse than it started, which is a big part of the negative opinions towards home mastering. Still, I don't see why the craft can't be learned by someone with patience and determination, just like anything else.
 
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