Mixing/ Mastering

songsj

Member
I am finding the whole mixing and mastering subject quite confusing. In the professional world I think practices, methods and procedures are pretty well defined based on the client and style of music. But in the hobbyist, amateur, and prosumer areas things don't seem to be as clear cut even though in reality we should be trying to achieve the same results. See for me I guess if I was engineering my personal projects correctly by the time each song was finished it would be on a 16 bit finished cd that I just had to load into a cd creator program to make the finished cd compilation. Which I guess means I should be mixing and mastering each song with consistent methods and end results so they fit on the compilation with no issues. I burn my own cd's, this is just a hobby I'm not preparing a master to be mass produced or stamped. So I guess my thoughts are if you plan on sending your song or project out for professional mastering or mass duplication you may do things one way. If you are recording your song for a cd you plan on burning yourself for friends and relatives and are handling the project from start to finish you may do things a bit differently even though you are looking for similar results in the end. I don't know if any of this makes sense.
 
It isn't that confusing. Most important is that you are happy with the end result.

I use Fabfilter Pro-L on master bus. Sometimes a little EQ and a API 2500 compressor before the limiter.

I find that my 'home' masters are quite close to that which clients find after sending to a designated mastering guy, but theirs are always a bit cleaner and louder.

There is definitely something to be gained by having a trained ear in a perfectly treated room that gives the final master more goodness.

The last 3 projects I have sent out for mastering I spoke with the ME and sent both my master as well as the raw mix with nothing on the master bus. They like being able to see what the band was already happy with as far as my master, but every time their final master was much better.

It just more money...
 
As jimmy says, it's not that confusing. You need to break it down. Its a series of steps and procedures that by themselves are simple. (But need to be learned and mastered)
Don't try to tackle it all at once. Take it in chunks.
 
I prepare my songs the same way whether I will master them or send them out. My goal is that my completed project will be a CD with 12-14 songs on it. I've completed 3 of them. I mastered the second one myself and I sent the first and last ones out to be mastered. All phases leading up to mastering were the same for me.

You mentioned consistency and I think it is really important to the overall feel of an album. Unfortunately for the home recording types like us, writing, recording and mixing 12 songs can take years. The first song will not sound anything like the last song.

To fix that, I pick the one song I like the best and copy all the channel settings for each track. Then I copy all those channel settings to all the other songs and remix everything. I get a much more consistent sound across all the songs and it makes the mastering phase a whole lot easier. Whether I do it or someone else. I didn't figure that little trick out until my 2nd CD. The first one really sucks and I can't blame the mastering engineer for that. lol. :D
 
To get the consisitency between tracks is the key thing in the method you're using (self-mastering). It's best to get the MIX done for each first, then using an 'easy' hand bring the volumes up on each (avoid over limiting/over-compression). Then listen to them in sequence to see to see if any seem louder than others, or if, tonally, any seem different. Adjust, then re-listen.
 
Why did you decide to go back to a mastering house for the 3rd CD? Was there something about the 2nd CD that you didn't like?

Thanks,
Don.....
 
Why did you decide to go back to a mastering house for the 3rd CD? Was there something about the 2nd CD that you didn't like?

Thanks,
Don.....

Yes, it was a little boomy in certain low freqs, overall. Still quite listenable, but after hearing it for a while, the little discrepancies kind of urk me. I sent the 3rd CD to a place in Nashville. I asked them to go through all the songs and match them up better and to EQ them to "remove" my home studio sound. I told them they didn't need to build a master CD, that I could do that myself, so they only had to send me the .wav files back. Worked out well and they did a good job for a good price.

When I say Remove my studio sound, my meaning is I know my little studio is going to have peaks and valleys across the audio spectrum. I would like to think they have a great room and great monitoring system so they can hear where my studio falls short and can adjust for that. I don't expect them to be able to correct for poor mixing choices, but for global EQ.

At least I hope they did that. :rolleyes:
 
The logic in mastering is to bring every sonic quality of a song up to commercial radio standards. Whether it's one song or 50 in a project, the goal remains the same.

On a song by song basis, I listen to each song and bring it to the proper compression level, bass level and boominess, etc. compared to a set commercial radio standard. Once I do that, all the songs match. I don't even have to listen to the songs back to back. They're perfectly consistent. But then again i have mastered over 40,000 songs.

This is like if you gave me 20 pieces of wood sized 3-4 feet and said you want them all 2 feet. I will cut one by one exactly 2 feet and give you back the entire stack perfectly the same size. I don't have to cut them all at one, I could cut one piece every hour, regardless they will all be the same.

But you CANNOT do this using templates or by compressing or mastering all the songs on a CD together at the same time. It will not work. All mixes are different, even if its +1/-1 db in a couple areas.

This is why auto mastering like LANDR will never work. It can't match an industry standard from song to song and make an entire CD consistent.

My mastering course or at the very least my $6.89 ebook would greatly help you understand exactly what mastering is and how to do it.

I wish you the best with you music!
 
Client contact's me for project. Prior projects final has shown them that that they want to work with me. I do what I do. It may be 8 or 200 tracks. It takes what it takes.

The topic is actually redundant. I have done hip hop vocal only tracks that only take maybe 15 tracks. Any song needs what it needs. There is no other way.
 
The logic in mastering is to bring every sonic quality of a song up to commercial radio standards.
Disagree. If you're not aiming your mastered tracks at radio, why do that?
Certainly it's to make an album consistent, but the benchmark is what you choose (or your client chooses), and that doesn't - of necessity - mean radio loudness.
Radio, for most home masterers, is a dream state some way down the track, but streaming is more likely as a "broadcast medium).
 
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