mastering problem

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pod4477

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hey guys when i use the waves L1 ultramaximizer i find that my crash cymbols sound aweful and peaked. why is this? and how can i use this plugin to my advantage?
 
pod4477 said:
hey guys when i use the waves L1 ultramaximizer i find that my crash cymbols sound aweful and peaked. why is this?
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Because... Uh... You're putting a brick-wall limiter on something with cymbals ringing.

"Sheer volume" comes at a price - That price is different with every recording. A certain amount of experience might be able to "haggle" with that price to a point, but there aren't exactly any "quick fixes" to this...
 
A song can only get so loud before it starts to sound like shit.

I've tried using limiters in the past, and could never really get that much more volume from my song before it started to sound like ass. Maybe I wasn't using it properly.

So I usually get rid of the really big peaks with volume envelopes (on the stereo mixdown).

I'm probably the only one who does this, but it works. :o
 
hm interesting. Some mastering ive messed around with makes my snare sound like shit. Idk maybe im doin it wrong...what kind o fvolume envelopes?
 
using a brick wall limiter too liberally will make the mix thwunkintoabigmessofloudandundefinedsound

instead of giving it the s p a c e it needs to b r e a t h for clarity and definition. Dynamics in a mix means more than just the difference between loud and soft passages ... having dynamics lets you hear AIR - without that air, you have nothing.
 
pod4477 said:
hm interesting. Some mastering ive messed around with makes my snare sound like shit. Idk maybe im doin it wrong...what kind o fvolume envelopes?
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I'm sure he means that he just draws them in manually. This can be a really good approach, especially if you have a just a few peaks that need toning down, or some soft parts that need to be adjusted up. The advantage is that you will completely avoid any unwanted tonal changes a plugin might introduce to your song.
 
Some mastering ive messed around with makes my snare sound like shit. Idk maybe im doin it wrong...
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I think someone is equating "mastering" with "getting it loud" - The two are (unfortunately) related to some extent, but let's not water it down to just that...
 
Probably a safe guess that you mix your crashes pretty hot? So, there they are sticking their heads up out of the mix just waiting to get decapitated by a brick wall limiter.
While mixing should be done with your ears, there is something to be said for using your eyes to see if a mix is going to be "mastering for loudness" friendly or not. If there are excessive dynamics showing up in the mix waveform, those peaks are going to get mangled by something like the L1.
 
ya thats true maybe it is the mix of the crashes to begin with. And im not really going for loudness but more more of a master pleasing ot my ears. I would rathe rhave a clear master than a loud one.
 
pod4477 said:
I would rathe rhave a clear master than a loud one.
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What I'd recommend then is to work the mix as if there were no such thing as mastering. In other words, get the mix *right* so that the mixdown sounds as good as possible and requires only a minimum amount of polish, if any at all.

Your 2mix may still require some tweaking anyway, which is fine. But the more you get right in the mix itself and the less you save to "master", the better your production will wind up sounding overall.

"Its the mixing engineer's job to make the mastering engineer's job easy."

G.
 
ya thats a good way to put it, thanks man. Thats how i'm doing it, im tryin to get the mix as good as possible. What can i do so that my drums still sound the same on the premaster and the master?
 
If you aren't trying to get the mix loud, why are you using a limiter?

If the limiter is making your cymbals sound bad, it means they are too loud...WAAAYY too loud. Screwing up a snare drum is more understandable.


You can never add quality, you can only take it away. If your mix doesn't sound good to begin with, mastering won't help.
 
pod4477 said:
What can i do so that my drums still sound the same on the premaster and the master?
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Re-read my last post :).

Put simply, and to repeat what's been said a thousand times already, stop hitting the mixdown so hard.

If in the process of trying to squeeze volume out of the 2mix you are adversely affecting any part of the mix, that means you're squeezing the mix too hard. Period. It's as simple as that. For any given mix, one can only squeeze so hard before it starts falling apart.

If for some indefensible reason you want more loudness than your mix has to give, you're out of luck. Either it's because the mix itself is improperly constructed, or because the tracks from with the mix is constructed are of less than stellar quality to begin with. Usually it's a combination of both.

G.
 
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