At the DIY mastering stages, a couple questions:

P

parkbirds

New member
First of all I'm using SoundForge and Ozone. I have done albums before, but I'm really trying to make this one -pause, gulp- good.

How the hell do I boost the mix above 0db? I'm looking to get around 2db in peaks. I cant even change anything (like the play meters to even show things above a certain point.)

I recorded everything extremely flat, and then extracted eq's. Nothing is really boosted, except a few things in the mix-down stages. To avoid boomyness I have no deep bass drums or bass guitars, but the pre-master still sounds boomy on a cd player (not on my monitors oddly enough, sounds perfect) (although practically no bass at all). To make up for this I am trying exciters on the mid ranges... It sounds better but not perfect, and I don't really want to over process. Anyone have any suggestions?

I know most of you will say, 'do whatever makes it sound good' and I'm all for that. But, I really don't know what I'm doing with mastering, and would like a little convincing. I have come a long way (2 years of ADAT and cheap mixer tweaking) and I don't want the mix to crap out due to lack of knowledge. If it helps the music is John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band meets distorted voice meets BAUHOAS echo; unortadox to say the least, so Id like to be creative and try whatever.
 
If your mix still sounds completely boomy, I'd first try to get it done in the mix... You have the much better possibilities to act in there... I'm not sure whether I'd use exciters to polish your overall sound. You're likely to spoil more than you get...

Often the boom on cheapass recorders is caused by low mids rather than real bass - the small speakers can't play the bass anyway...

aXel
 
..........

Blue Bear Sound,

I would love to read that article, but the link is not working )0:

As far as the boomyness, It's not really a big problem, it could be a fatal flaw, but it's just the way I miced the snare. (About 3 feet away, don't ask me why, I had something going at the time). I have eq'ed that out for the most part, and yes it is that low end mid range. The mix is really good if I don't say so myself, (It had a bunch of other fixed problems)... But; As far as exciters, it's the only way I really can get my recording to jump out, instead of sound flat. Compression, limiting and eq are not really helping alone, so I guess I'm going to have to go for just messing around with everything that I don't really understand (why not?.)

Good to know about the 0db, I will try to keep it around there.
 
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