Seperation Mastering - Way to Go!!!
I'm using Seperation Mastering on my tracks.. i mix it myself and master it myself..and i like it, outbeats traditional mastering straight on!
I don't think Seperation Mastering is asking the ME to mix the tracks again, it may seem like mixing, but it's not really that..but honestly, i'm not to sure whether my method is considered Seperation Mastering, cos i cooked it up myself, but it works..
When you send to the ME tracks in groups..eg.. Track 1: Drums/Bass, Track 2: Rhythm Guitars, Track 3: Vocals, Track 4: Strings..
From there, the ME will send each track into the Analog Compressor, A/D, basically professional equipment, in order to give the good analog stereo sound.. which digital softwares cannot give.
One may argue that they can just send the whole mix into the same gear and get the same effect, but that isn't the point.
When you send an entire mixdown into a compressor, be it a multiband compressor, you become limited that all elements of sound that falls with a certain range of frequency would have to be compressed according to the atk/rel/thres/decay settings that you would set in the compressor.
What if a string that gives a low humming sound falls within the same freq as you kick drum, in which your kick requires a short atk/rel setting, while doing that actually degrades that string sound, giving breathing or pumping, that sounds awful in your final product.
The limitation that comes from traditional mastering methods works out that you will not be able to control that.
Moreover, you won't have the options to not compress certain sounds if you do not wish to, cos everything has to pass into the multiband compressor. Yes, you may argue that you can choose certain freq ranges not to be compressed, but what if 2 elements fall within that range, and one you want compressed, the other not at all??
The problem i had with seperation mastering is the inability to sync all the mastered stems together, which i countered it by placing 4 clicks on the front of my mixes and syncing them zooming in on the tracks after mastering, and cutting away the 4 clicks after that.
Of cos, that issue could be fully solved if i had the big $$ to purchase a hardware DAW, import my mixdown subgrp tracks into the DAW harddisk, sub out eack track into seperate compressors etc, and put them back into my PC DAW.. that will be a huge cost of 5 analog compressors, 5 analog reverbs, 1 analog DAW (i think my present countermeasure works for me for now).
Seperation mastering requires more time and effort, and after i put them all together again, i mixdown as usual as the final master.
Some extra layer touch ups i will work on on this final mastering workfile, including volume changes modified by the compressors which may not meet up to my own likings, as it is, i have more control over mastering this way. If i don't feel that the sound is thick enough, i add some more layers to thicken the sounds.
What i will not do is to apply any digital software plugins on these mastered tracks, except for adding reverb, since i feel that digital softwares actually degrades the analog sounds the most.. i don't want the digital sound coming back in again.
I'm satisfied currently with my seperation mastering results as i find there's a clearer seperation in my mastered tracks, and yet they sound loud and analog enough, but i'm always yearning to improve and enhance with time. I've new ideas to improving the methods even now. It's extra effort, but it's worth it!!! Esp when you are doing the mastering urself!
My greatest regression is my lag of high end gear....
) have selected mastering as your specialty? Not that there's anything wrong with that, but we sure could use guys like you earlier in the process.