Mastering Plug-Ins

Yes let me clear some things up haha. First and foremost, the biggest problem was that the first stereo I checked the mix on was a pair of Bose computer speakers. This is where I listen to music everyday. I had no idea how much these speakers colored the sound. Extreme bass and highs, with no mids. Basically the drums were completely overwhelming and distorted, and the guitars sounded small and flat. I went on to a pair of good headphones, and another home stereo and further took notes of what needed help.

Going back to the mix on my monitors, I did a few corrections, fixed some extreme EQing that sounded good on my monitors but in a "real world" situation, did not.

Basically it's just a matter of me getting used to my monitors. Also, I went back to my mixes and boosted them as much as I could using the stock plug ins in Logic. Everything is sounding great as I am learning what is necessary to make a song.

I am very new to this!

Some of you guys are viscous, rude elitists. Thank you.
 
Order Izotope Ozone 3 or SpectraLive.

Those are good VST plug-ins for adjusting EQ, reverb, compression and dynamics. But make sure you go on youtube and watch a lot of tutorials on any program you buy though.

Watching a tutorial can help you to learn how to mix (because just using a limiter won't do ANYTHING for you right now) in addition to actually learning what the buttons and such mean.



Most important, don't get frustrated if things sound bad. I remember mixing one song 48 times in one day until I was completely satisfied with the mix. But you're not going to do it all in one day.

Good luck
 
Angelo, the fact that you said it "completely sounds like shit" is a very good sign because if you're just starting out of course it does and there'd be a real problem if you thought it was great when it was garbage.

Everybody's first mixes sound like shit.

The biggest problem I had starting out was that my bass was so boomy and undefined that it took up all this room, most of which you really couldn't hear, I call it "fog". It added no musical value to the song and made it hard to get my songs to seem comparably loud to the recordings I wanted to copy. So do whatever you can to get the bass defined and tight. Maybe it's in the playing, room, miking, eq, compression, a 3 yr subscription to "Elitist Prick" magazine :) ... do whatever it takes.
 
A good mix translate on a transistor radio

AngeloMcCulloch said:
Going back to the mix on my monitors, I did a few corrections, fixed some extreme EQing that sounded good on my monitors but in a "real world" situation, did not.

I am very new to this! QUOTE]


Are your monitors flat response?
If they are then what sounds best on them will sound best in the real world. A good mix sounds good on a transistor radio.
Also, Regardless of your bose speakers being small or whatever, if the mix is really good it still should sound good on them as well. Listen to some of the great mixes by Motown, Hendrix, etc. you will notice they sound good no matter what. It is not the mastering it started with the mix!
Click to expand...
 
Massive Master said:
Level is simple. A monkey with a freeware limiter can do "loud" -- Get the GVST limiter. It's free, it's better than Ozone's limiter (IMO/E), and it'll make a mix that's not translating sound even more horrible (just like Ozone's limiter).
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I downloaded this and have the .dll. I don't know where to put the file, though.

I have a folder called Vstplugins on my C: drive, but I'm not sure that's the right one. There is no "Plugins" folder in the Pro Tools folder, so I don't know what to do.

Any help?

I'm using Pro Tools 8 in Windows (7).
 
Hey Angelo...why don't you post up the mix and let some folks here have a listen? There are plenty of people that can help you out.
 
Lots of good advice in this thread. I must have missed any snobbery or elitist tomfoolery. This is good info. Much thanks to you guys for weighing in on this.
 
Massive Master said:
I'm not a PT guy, but it wouldn't surprise me if you can't use VST plugs in ProTools.

Check the manual...?
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I know for a fact that you can't. It's only RTAS, though I think you can buy a program that will let you use VST by converting them to RTAS or something like that.

His monitors are not flat response. He said they are Bose. Bose speakers are nice for listening, but they are not even a little bit flat. It's going to be a huge pain trying to get a good mix with those. If you were willing to drop all that money on a mastering plug-in, why don't you instead invest it in a decent pair of monitors? You can get a pair of M-Audio BX5a monitors for no more than you were going to spend on OZone. I rather like the M-Audio monitors I have. I actually like listening to music with them better than any other speakers I have... I guess I got over the MEGA BASS thing faster than other people.
 
In order to use VST plug-ins with Pro Tools you will need the VST to RTAS adapter:

http://www.fxpansion.com/index.php?page=15

Pro Tools will only directly support RTAS and for TDM based systems TDM plug-ins.

That said there are still plenty to choose from, my personal preferences are PSP Xenon and the Sonnox limiters. I find the Xenon to be slightly warmer sounding with the Sonnox for more aggresive material. Some MEs also like Ozone's limiter and dither, but tend to shy away from other parts of the product.

For really loud you may want to stage a combination of compressors, limiter(s), and possibly even a slight amount of clipping on a good converter with each helping to spread out the workload and address different parts of the envelope rather than having one doing all of the work. Some also find techniques like parallel compression useful.

It's not all monkey business to do loud right, but there is so much more to mastering than doing loud.
 
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hey, seems to me there's alot of advice here suggesting some gooood room treatment and so on, how i got around this was mixing headphones! DT100's to be precise, and i always check my mix during the mixing/mastering through a range of headphones ive aquired over the years my sterio, and even my tv speakers, which are all convieniantly connected to my computer :)

Edit: how many sound enthusiasts cant spell stereo?
 
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Mixing with headphones... :laughings:

Whatever floats yer' boat. I'd rather be in an improperly treated room with cheapie monitors that have my ears isolated from each other with drivers less than an inch away, but that's just me...

Mixing with headphones isn't "getting around" the problem - It's an entirely whole new set of problems.
 
Well.... Todd Rundgren mixed his latest album "Arena" with headphones and it didn't turn out bad, He did it out of necessity though, his pro tools set up wasn't working properly so he had to record on his laptop using reason.

I personally wouldn't do it.... I imagine he probably had a high end set of cans.
 
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