Mastering Help

[Charles_Young]

I have been working on music for a while but I have to admit I am absolutely horrible at mastering, my stuff sounds good in my headphones and on my speakers in my room but when I play it anywhere else (i.e My car) it sounds horrible and less full. Do you guys have any Pointers?

 

[Massive Master]

~95% of the time, this isn't a mastering issue by any stretch of the imagination.

And ~85% of that ~95% of the time, it's either (A) a monitoring issue (B) a room issue (C) undeveloped listening skills or (D) a combination of the three.

 

[mixsit]

.. my stuff sounds good in my headphones and on my speakers in my room but when I play it anywhere else (i.e My car) it sounds horrible and less full. Do you guys have any Pointers?

Start with listening through your mix system and environment to some commercial tracks you like that are relevant to what you're doing. At least that way you can begin to get a bead on what your system sounds like -You learn it quirks, tone balances good or bad, at least it gives a reference to shoot from.

 

[mjbphotos]

What mixsit said. Learn your monitoring system. BTW, you are not mastering at this stage, you are mixing. Until you get a good mix, any mastering is "polishing a turd".