Who would like to master my album?

C

ckyphil

New member
Hi, I am coming to the last few days of mixing my band's album, (the first album I ever produced, recorded and mixed myself), and it is almost time to master it.

I understamd how important this process is in shaping the final project so I want it to be done as well as possible so that the tracks reach their maximum potential.

If anyone who has experience would like to give this a go I'd be greatly appreciative. (In case your are wondering I will not be making money from the work you put in as we only intend to give burnt copies to friends and family.)

Here are some details about the record that might help:
It is sort of a rock/punk record by a group of British guys that wanted to start a band and make a record for fun.
It is about 20mins long.
We would like the final product to be warm and punchy, (if that is at all possible with the pre-master).

Here is a link to a sample of the current mixes of 3 songs on the record. Hopefully these will give anyone interested a taste of what we are doing.
3 Song Sample

For anyone who wants to take up the challenge I will send you a pre-master of each song in .wav format mixed down to stereo.

Thanks. Anyone interested can reply here or PM me.
 
Before I'd send that up for mastering, I'd suggest a few remix issues . . . the vocals in the first clip are a bit far forward, especially for punk, sounds a little karaoke. The cymbals are too bright, lacking body, and they're a bit loud too. One of the clips, I forget which, the bass was pretty hot, it might need compression or a simple rollback.

It *may* be possible for an ME to fix that stuff, but it's much easier to do in a mix.
 
ckyphil said:
I understamd how important this process is in shaping the final project so I want it to be done as well as possible so that the tracks reach their maximum potential.
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Then you should understand that the LAST thing you would want to do is ask a bunch of strangers if any of them are willing to master it for free.

G.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
Then you should understand that the LAST thing you would want to do is ask a bunch of strangers if any of them are willing to master it for free.

G.
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Yeah, but it actually doesn't matter becuase if I don't like the end result I don't have to use it, so what does it matter??

And thanks for the mix tips 'mshilarious'. This is my first ever record so all the hints are really useful. I will work on the EQ of the cymbals and look at that bass again. Do you have any tips for keeping vocals prominent in a mix but blending them to the rest of the music so that they are loud but not 'Kareoke Style' how you say?

My budget is zero, as it has been for the whole Cd, so I'm pretty pleased with my results thus far. I don't intend to pay anyone to do this. I am merely wondering if anyone with experience wishes to help out a beginner by applying their skills on my songs.
 
ckyphil said:
And thanks for the mix tips 'mshilarious'. This is my first ever record so all the hints are really useful. I will work on the EQ of the cymbals and look at that bass again. Do you have any tips for keeping vocals prominent in a mix but blending them to the rest of the music so that they are loud but not 'Kareoke Style' how you say?
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Well in punk vocal often aren't that prominent. But if you want the vocals forward, Motown used to use something called the "exciting compressor" which keeps the dynamics of the vocal while compressing and boosting the presence range. That might be a bit oversimplified, there is a good thread about it way, way back here somewhere. It's easier to do in modern times with a multiband.

Another thought is that since the vocals aren't the strongest part of the performance, you might try disguising them a bit using a telephone-style effect (I think there was a bit of that in one track, intentional or not), or distortion as in the Strokes . . . just tossing out some ideas, you could mix it up a bit.
 
mshilarious said:
Another thought is that since the vocals aren't the strongest part of the performance, you might try disguising them a bit using a telephone-style effect (I think there was a bit of that in one track, intentional or not), or distortion as in the Strokes . . . just tossing out some ideas, you could mix it up a bit.
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Yeh, that was actually the effect I was trying to achieve. Any tips on how to achieve this??
 
ckyphil said:
Yeh, that was actually the effect I was trying to achieve. Any tips on how to achieve this??
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Telephone, you kill everything above 4kHz and below 250Hz, and compress what is left. Distortion, your favorite amp sim should do.
 
mshilarious said:
Telephone, you kill everything above 4kHz and below 250Hz, and compress what is left. Distortion, your favorite amp sim should do.
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Cheers. Do you know of any 24 band EQ Plug-Ins that allow you to individually adjust frequencies, because I am a little against Cubase's built in one as you can't easily boost or pull specific frequency bands.
 
ckyphil said:
Cheers. Do you know of any 24 band EQ Plug-Ins that allow you to individually adjust frequencies, because I am a little against Cubase's built in one as you can't easily boost or pull specific frequency bands.
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You don't really want a graphic EQ. I'm not familiar with Cubase's built-in EQ, but all you need is a four-band parametric, that is far more flexible than a graphic. For the telephone, set the low and high controls to shelf and cut -12, -18, whatever it lets you.
 
ckyphil said:
My budget is zero, as it has been for the whole Cd, so I'm pretty pleased with my results thus far. I don't intend to pay anyone to do this. I am merely wondering if anyone with experience wishes to help out a beginner by applying their skills on my songs.
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What do you do for a living?

If I was your boss, and asked if you wanted to come in and work next weekend for free ... what would your reaction be?

If I told you I needed some help building a new deck ... mowing the lawn, making me breakfast, etc. ... would you be willing to come in and do it for free? Because if so, then I'd be happy to hook you up with someone who could do a great, professional job mastering your stuff, and I'll pick up the tab for it.

If not, then go f*&$ yourself. Seriously, we don't need people coming on this board asking for free handouts.
.
 
ckyphil said:
Yeah, but it actually doesn't matter becuase if I don't like the end result I don't have to use it, so what does it matter?? (snip)

My budget is zero, as it has been for the whole Cd, so I'm pretty pleased with my results thus far. I don't intend to pay anyone to do this. I am merely wondering if anyone with experience wishes to help out a beginner by applying their skills on my songs.
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So you're asking for professionals to take time out to work on your project, at no charge, when there's a distinct possibility that you won't use any particular version...

Call me crazy, but that's not an awful lot of incentive there for anyone (except you)...
 
I am a 19 year old student studying to become an Occupational Psychologist, and I work part-time as a sound engineer and head of tech at my Student Union. I also work part time in the hospitality industry to cover university costs. What did you do today?

I have recorded this project for fun in the last week and have no big plans for it. I merely wondered if anyone wanted to take perhaps 30 mins to do a favour for someone relatively new about here, and I have no problems if not a single person wants to do so. I don't want a sound professional mastering my songs, just someone who know's how to use IK Multimedia's TRacks 24 better than me. In any case why are people that work full time in thousand dollar studios surfing on homerecording dot com.

Chessrock, you must have taken a few minutes out of your day to post that snipey little comment, which has utimately fallen on deaf ears. Why waste time on hating? Although I am well aware that flaming on message boards has become a past time for many, so who am I to jugde how you spend your time. In my opinion though, if you don't like what you see in a thread, ignore it; you'll have a much more productive day.

Anyway, thanks for giving me an idea of the type of people that post on here and once more proving that people can get an ego boost from being rude to someone they don't know on the internet.
 
I must have missed the part where he said "I want a professional mastering engineer to master my song for free". Of course asking for free mastering is asking for amature crap mastering, but that's his problem to sort out.
Once again I would remind the insulted parties to remember that this is "Home Recording", and it is possible that a non-professional recording enthusiast with some halfway decent mastering chops might want to excercise those chops pro-bono.
I am one who appreciates the time that the pros who participate in this board put in, and hope they continue to be charitable with their time, knowledge, and experience. I'm not sure that entitles them to the degree of rudeness I've been seeing more and more lately. Sorry, just an observation.
 
Exactly.... I want an amateur who is better than me to have a pop at it. If it sucks, who cares, they spent half an hour, I say thanks and don't use it. There are plenty of other threads where people post mp3s and people jump at the chance to master them. This is only 20mins of music after all.
 
What is it exactly that causes you to believe that any joker who is willing to do your stuff for free just for the chance to "practice" is going to do any better of a job than you can? They are all in the exact same boat you are. That's the first part I don't get.

The second part I don't get is why some folks consider audio engineering any different from any other skillset. If this were a carpentry forum and someone came on and said, "I built my own deck. Who wants to come over and stain and urethane for me for free?", they'd be laughed right off the forum. If this were a photography forum and someone came on and said, "I just took a bunch of wedding photos. Does anybody want to develop them (or if they're digital, photoshop and print them) for me for free?" the same thing would happen.

Combining those two yields a third thing I don't understand: Anybody who does carpentry or wedding photography or cobbling or sex for free is exactly the kind of person we have come to know to NOT ask to do it for us. Yet somehow audio engineering is different? Talk about rude...and disrespectful.

G.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
Anybody who does . . . sex for free is exactly the kind of person we have come to know to NOT ask to do it for us.
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Uhhhh . . . uhhhh . . . no, never mind, I don't want to know :o
 
If it were an amature photography forum, and someone who is an enthusiast on doing shoots was looking for someone who is a photoshop enthusiast to practice doing some touch up, I don't see where anyone would or should be laughed at, or insulted. It's two amatures of related hobbies seeking an symbiotic arrangement. Both know the other is an amature, and place no expectations on the others work, but there's a chance that both will do a good job, and each will benefit from the arrangement with no monies involved. Where's the crime?
 
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