Mastering?? Were do I being and how???

JustinCurtis

New member
I'm really good at recording and mixing. use to intern at a studio and learned how to balance all the freq and get a good mix. I never picked up anything about mastering nor have I tried it. I looked on youtube and tryed many different mastering tutorials and they came out like shit. So I was wondering if any one had good how too knowledge or can edjucate me a bit on the art that is mastering. Or even point me in the right direction to a link or site that can help me start to learn about it.
 
What is your listening room set up? Well-treated room and good monitors? Most times its better to have a 'different set of ears' do the mastering. I don't think its something you can really learn by watching a bunch of youtubes from other amateurs.
 
I agree with MJ, although you can certainly come away with ok results, experimenting and running a quasi master in the same room that you mixed in. Getting good at mastering comes with the experience of just doing it over and over again, in a room that you trust. ..Sorta like learning to play the guitar proficiently.. You can watch a ton of youtube videos on how to do it, but it will still take a lot of time and practice to get good at, and it's nothing that really happens over night. gl.
 
I looked on youtube and tryed many different mastering tutorials and they came out like sh**.
A) If you're trying these on your own mixes, you're going to run into the same problem most people run into (which is why you'll rarely ever see credits with the same name on mixing and mastering). If you're going to try to jump in the pool, work on someone else's mixes. You only get a chance to hear a mix for the very first time once -- And that objectivity is half the mental battle.

B) If you're watching "how to make it loud" videos (which is what I tend to see on YT), just stop. Loudness is the easy part. It's an afterthought. A monkey with a decent limiter can make a mix loud. Work on translation - work on flow - work on quality - (hopefully it goes without saying but) work on the technical aspects of the creation of the master.

And yeah, make sure that your monitoring chain and room treatments are as far as you can possibly take them. You will only ever hear as accurately and consistently as your monitoring chain allows you to hear (period). Your monitoring chain will only ever be as accurate and consistent as the room they're in allows them to be (period).

People always say there are no rules in recording -- There, you have at least two. And they're the most important ones. And there's no denying them at any stage in the process.
 
Search for Ian Shepherd's Home Mastering Masterclass - takes you from the basics right up, it's really fun to do as well :D and he answers questions for people on the course
 
Were do I being and how?
This is a deep and profound philosophical question. Its answer has been the pursuit of all of the most intelligent and insightful humans for at least 500,000 years. Pretty sure it's not the question you actually wanted to ask, though...
 
The DEEP philosophical questions are:
"How did I begin?" &
"Why?".
Plus the ubiquitous question that is resolved by the meta answer 42.
 
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