Most important mastering tip for beginners

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Rod Norman

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Tip 1 - You don't know what you're doing.
Tip 2 - YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING!
Tip 3 - Check in your multiband compressor, usually bundled in your mastering suite of your recording software. There should be some presets, often with names like Rock, Hard Rock, Metal, Jazz, Smooth Jazz, Easy Listening, Monster Thrash; stuff like that. Now, select each one and Z/B them. When you find one that makes your mix sound better. Select it and master a copy of your mix. (Always keep a copy of your mix. You might want a real mastering engineer to work on it later. you never want to give a mastering engineer a mastered mix to work with. This will give you a happy finished product without you having to screw anything up by guessing. Remember. Mastering is not mixing for a reason. You do NOT know what you are doing. The presets are great. If you don't have any (or you just can't find them) ask a friend if you can run your mix up on their system and master it with their presets. Do NOT try to fine tune anything. Always test your final out in a vehicle with a custom audio system. If it sounds good there, it should sound good anywhere. Don't try to "learn" mastering. There really is a reason those engineers get the big bucks and why the pros go to them. Good luck.
 
Rod Norman said:
Tip 1 - You don't know what you're doing.
Tip 2 - YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING!
Tip 3 - Check in your multiband compressor, usually bundled in your mastering suite of your recording software. There should be some presets, often with names like Rock, Hard Rock, Metal, Jazz, Smooth Jazz, Easy Listening, Monster Thrash; stuff like that. Now, select each one and Z/B them. When you find one that makes your mix sound better. Select it and master a copy of your mix. (Always keep a copy of your mix. You might want a real mastering engineer to work on it later. you never want to give a mastering engineer a mastered mix to work with. This will give you a happy finished product without you having to screw anything up by guessing. Remember. Mastering is not mixing for a reason. You do NOT know what you are doing. The presets are great. If you don't have any (or you just can't find them) ask a friend if you can run your mix up on their system and master it with their presets. Do NOT try to fine tune anything. Always test your final out in a vehicle with a custom audio system. If it sounds good there, it should sound good anywhere. Don't try to "learn" mastering. There really is a reason those engineers get the big bucks and why the pros go to them. Good luck.
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I hope you're joking around, because that could possibly be the stupidest post I've read in a year.

No offense. :)
 
I hope so too, that's why I said that. But maybe I got too used to depending on smiley's for humor/sarcasm.
 
Greatest Advice I have ever heard hey, Im gonna keep this post in my archives for reference all you mastering eng SUCK IT!!! HAHAHAAH!!!!
 
I was searching Google "for people who suck and dont know what their doing" and wound up here.
So far, great information and help...Thanks!
 
A perfectly mixed song will not need mastering.

If a given song is part of a larger album project then it might need level matching, that's about it.
 
It doesn't matter if he was joking or not. I never read any threads in this forum anyway. ...and I especially would never reply to any of them. :)
 
Rod Norman said:
Tip 1 - You don't know what you're doing.
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There's almost surely some validity to this. But one doesn't learn unless one dives in and makes an effort to learn.

I listen to early mixes I made of things that I thought sounded good and now can't believe I was ever happy with them.
 
Jonesey9 said:
A perfectly mixed song will not need mastering.
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Wonder what you mean by "perfectly mixed".

A friend of mine did some recording in a Nashville studio. These were tracks that were performed/recorded by some of the same people who do recordings for some major label artists. They played me the before and after tracks. Night and day difference despite them having been recorded with boutique gear.

It seems part of what the hifalutin' gear does is make the track a lot more receptive to post-tweaking.
 
Jonesey9 said:
A perfectly mixed song will not need mastering.

If a given song is part of a larger album project then it might need level matching, that's about it.
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This is great news! But it also sucks to know that there's only one possible way in the universe to mix a song with success: and that's perfectly.
 
*facepalm*

here are some real tips about mastering.

before the tips, common sense: your master will sound like your mix, but beefier. So if you have a shitty mix, you will end up with beefy shit. You can't polish a turd.

1) 90% of your audience won't have any fucking clue what you did. They'll just think it sounds louder. So don't stress too hard over perfection.
2) many of us won't even be making CD's, it will all be online, so most of "mastering" really just comes down to EQ and Compression, which you should already know from mixing.
3) many of us aren't working in pro studios, so the mix is already gonna have flaws. Learning how to master yourself could make a huge difference for your mix and will get it that much closer to making it sound "pro." Getting to know your EQ, Compression, Multiband Compression, and Limiting will take you far. If you have just spent 100,000 dollars recording in a pro studio, you won't be able to do shit to it. Pay a mastering engineer. But... this is HOMERECORDING .com.
4) mastering engineers cost a ton of money. mastering lessons from the online community are free.
5) if you have a friend that mixes as well, get them to listen. Most of the benefit from a mastering job comes from a second set of ears. even if they do NOTHING AT ALL you will get a better idea for where to start.
6) no matter what, you aren't working in a pro studio so you WILL make mistakes. Test it on your stereo, in the car, and ESPECIALLY on crappy IPod headphones!! Wtf do you think your audience will be using to listen to you? a $5000 5.1 sound system? NO. Their mac laptop speakers. Make it sound great even through a butt hole of a speaker!

Theres more, but basically you want your master to improve the EQ, and get loud. Thats IT. So stop thinking mastering is so damn scary.
 
Allow me to clear up for those who thought my answer was stupid. Let's go back to the real issue with the question and the reason I answered it this way. Mastering is an art. you can learn it, but only if you are willing to do the work. There are literally hundreds of great videos to help you, most notably "Into the Lair". But this question presupposed that an average musician trying to record themselves or their friends could just take some advice and start mastering. That's why I said, "You don't know what you're doing". Once you accept that, you know why you need help. Now I could have rattled on and on with all the information on mastering, but the real gift most systems have are the presets. When you toggle through them, you can hear the difference and choose one that will do what you want. If you want to study and learn, looking at the settings and hearing the differences (and there really are significant differences) will help you understand how to use multiband compression to master your mixes by adjusting the settings to fine tune your outcome. That part isn't rocket science. For a newbie, the presets on their multiband compressor are a Godsend. There are very few real engineers handing out advice on this site. Most of them are simply sharing their experience with people who honestly need help. I noticed that any criticism never mentioned what it was they thought was so stupid about my answer. If you don't like the answer, ignore it, but it seems that most of the criticism is from those who don't understand the answer.
Rod Norman
Engineer

RAMI said:
I hope you're joking around, because that could possibly be the stupidest post I've read in a year.

No offense. :)
Click to expand...
 
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