Workflow for mixing/mastering

  • Thread starter Thread starter Stefan A
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Stefan A

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First of all, I don't know if workflow is the right word. But what I am talking about is a rundown of the typical things one goes about doing from the time the recording is on your computer, to sharing it with others. I am keeping real simple right now - just one song at a time with 3 tracks. I am not making an album so I don't need to worry about timing between songs or evening out the volume with songs. So far I have fixed a few notes, lined up precision problems, added a reverb track, panned each part (it's a duet), lowered the levels a bit. I have the song where I want it so I just need the next step. I know about rendering. In my case, is that the last step? Or is there additional mastering to do?

Thanks,
Stefan
 
Sorry, the reason you haven't had any replies is that your question is too general.
What exactly do you want to know? be specific and ask about small things one at a time.

For example - are you asking:
about mastering levels
or how to create a final mix
or what format to use
or what to do with the song once you've finished?
 
It's hard to be specific when you really don't know what questions to ask to begin with. I just want to know how to "finish" a song once it's been mixed. Perhaps there is nothing more to do, or maybe there are a bunch of steps - I don't know. Here is what I ended up doing to my song. I used the master level control to make sure the loudest part of my song was between -6 and -3. I selected all the tracks and rendered them to a stereo mix as a wav file. I then uploaded it to soundcloud. I am not sure if I should have done anything else.

Stefan
 
That sounds fine, if you're happy with the end result that is.
 
I'm going to hate myself for saying this, but...

The one thing I'd do is raise your levels up to 0dBFS (or maybe -0.1db for safety) after you finish mixing. This might be simple normalising or, if there are 1 or 2 transients in the mix that force the over all level down, maybe some hard limiting.

You're totally right to mix to the sort of levels you describe but, for distribution, unless you're up near zero you'll get "nice mix but it's too quiet" style comments when they compare your material to the next guy on Soundcloud. People are lazy these days and seem allergic to the volume know.

As I say, I hate myself for suggesting this and hate the "volume wars" but, alas, it's a fact of life.
 
The reason why I took the levels to where I did was because I read somewhere on the 'net that if you send your songs out to get mastered, the engineer will want that extra headroom. I'm not sending my song out to anybody, but I just figured that was standard. In the end, I am discovering that such details for me are rather moot. If people are going to listen to my songs on the iphone and such, what does it matter how nice the sound is or how well I panned the parts?
 
You are somewhat correct regarding panning - if your expected audience is listening in a mono or almost-mono mode, make sure your mixes sound good in mono mode. But you do want your files to be at sufficient volume. If you sending the files out to be mastered, then you should be keeping them down around -12dBFS, otherwise do like Bobbty says and get them as close to 0 as you can.
 
Stefan A said:
The reason why I took the levels to where I did was because I read somewhere on the 'net that if you send your songs out to get mastered, the engineer will want that extra headroom. I'm not sending my song out to anybody, but I just figured that was standard. In the end, I am discovering that such details for me are rather moot. If people are going to listen to my songs on the iphone and such, what does it matter how nice the sound is or how well I panned the parts?
Click to expand...

That's 100% true if you're sending a song out to be mastered (or even, after doing some reading, get into mastering for yourself). I was only referring to your comment about posting your mixes on Soundcloud, though it would apply to a CD you burn to listen to in the car or an MP3 copy you email to a friend.

There's nothing stopping you from keeping a "to be mastered" copy at -6 and just doing a "posting copy" at a higher level or whatever.
 
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