Basic mastering question

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Pirateking

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I realize this may have already addressed in older threads, so if you want to refer my back to those, that's fine. But here's the deal: my band recorded a CD a few months ago. The recording sounds good, but we kind of messed up the mixing on a couple of songs. In one song, the vocals jump up in volume for a second at one point and the guitars are too quiet the whole way through. The other problems are just general problems with the levels of individual instruments. I realize this may be a stupid question, but is this the kind of problem that could be solved if we took our CD to a studio and got them to master it for us? Please be gentle.
 
A good mastering engineer can probably "fix" your
problems.Do your homework and ask around before you take it to a person who may not have the experience and charge you an exhorbitant fee to re-master your C/D. Sounds like your
c/d was not normalized. How and what equipment did you use
to record your band? BTW, no question is stupid! It's
the stupid 1's that don't ask questions who will never know!
Peace 2-fingers.
 
It's probably best to go back and remix your problem tracks. No mastering can properly repair a bad mix.
 
i 2nd that.

you need to bring up the volume of the guitar, and put a compressor on the vocals. if you did compress the vocal track in question, did you set the attack fast enough or the ratio high enough? if you're afraid to play with the ratio, try bringing the threshold down a bit (in addition to a faster attack). beware however that you don't end up compressing the vocal parts that don't need compression.

izzy
 
crosstudio said:
i 2nd that.

you need to bring up the volume of the guitar, and put a compressor on the vocals. if you did compress the vocal track in question, did you set the attack fast enough or the ratio high enough? if you're afraid to play with the ratio, try bringing the threshold down a bit (in addition to a faster attack). beware however that you don't end up compressing the vocal parts that don't need compression.

izzy
Click to expand...

u mentioned about not compressing the parts that dont need to be compressed , i was just wondering about a few ways to achieve this .. I mean is it just a case of setting the threshold correctly??
cheers
spider
 
The main problem is that I didn't record it, and I really have little technical knowledge about threshold, etc. I'm not even sure if the guy who recorded us still has the original tapes. If he does, then we may be able to remix it, but if he doesn't, would mastering help at all?
 
Yeah. Either compress the vocals, or...(and this is what I'd do given your situation)...

Go back and hard limit your vocals, so that that one spike doesn't exist anymore. Or, if you're using computer software, select that itsy-bitsy piece of vocal and normalize it down to the level of the other vocals (and then normalize again to 99%).

You may want to compress your guitars. A lot of mixes end up with low-volume rhythm because the attack spikes screw up the sound. It's easy to hear the rhythm and chords because you've been listening to the damn song for an hour or so at that point. Run your rhythm (acoustic or electric) through a compressor again (even if you've recorded the track through a compressor originally), and raise El Volume.

Viola! Baked Beef Surprise!
 
Even a seasoned mastering engineer can only try and EQ your guitars up and vocal down (on that one part, which can sound different). He or she will just apply different EQs at different points in the song.

Why not re-record the song? Is it that good?
 
Basically we don't want to rerecord it because we don't really have the money to pay the guy to rerecord it. It sounds pretty good overall, especially the drums, so I think we'll just look into the EQing or mastering. Thanks.
 
You wouldn't need to re-record it, just re-mix it.
If you don't have the money for that either, you have a problem.
 
would i be so wrong in saying , you being the consumer in this case , you should take it back to him or her and let them know its a great recording , but "we're just not happy with these couple of parts" .... "could u remix them please" (manners always help with warranty) .. im sure the least they could do is give you a great price on a remix... About the tapes?? from what i gathered , ususally one would supply there own tape , if u didnt i would say chances are the individual tracks are gone.. Ive heard mastering can really make some differences though... U can talk to rox from long wave studios , he does a great deal for us on the bbs for mastering ... Quite a nice mastering suite to , so try and get in contact with him, im sure he'll help u out ...
Anyway , thats my two cents ... cheers all
spider
 
Your recording engineer should have caught those problems if he is worth what you paid him. If you cannot afford to re-record, you may still have the money to pay someone to master it properly. A good engineer can do alot with very little. Our old band had a similar problem on a track for a compilation CD that our mastering engineer fixed. It was like listening to a completely new song when he was done. SHOP AROUND. Someone can help you.
 
I'd put it into a computer with soundforge or wavelab and compress the shit out of it using the waves Ultramaximizer - that should help the gtr level problem as it flattens the dynamic range severely - as for the vox I'd grab that section and pull it down before maximizing. That's about all you can do pirate any EQ on the gtrs like 6db boost at 3 -4 Khz is going to effect the vocal - mind you that might also help.
cheers
 
Bottom line: in a perfect world, remixing would be your answer (and this is after all, a perfect world}...

In the mean time, first try some surgical EQ work to seperate those precious frequency territories that the vocals and guitars are fighting for. Maybe bringing out some of the lower or higher overtones in the guitars (not the same ones that the vocals want to fill, would give them some o' that juice that you're missing.

Better still, if you can gain access to some form of multi-band compression, that is a compressor that deals only with a specified frequency range, you could tame the run-away vocal track and (hopefully) not effect the rest of the mix. You may find that bringing the vocals under control there is suddenly a big space for the guitars to fill.

Once these vocal peaks are brought under control, you may be able to maximize/normalize/amplify the whole mix, and bring up the other subtle elements of your song that got lost due to what sounds like clumsy engineering work....

Good Luck Southwind Studios
 
Better still

Meet amicablby with the recordidsts and explain to them that - the expectations/aesthetics of your material were not (..in these ways..) met - and, while a good masering house could fix it for you/them, maybe if they could get it right everybody would win.....including them.

If not, there are are plenty of mastering plants that could make you smile from ear to smiling ear.
 
i think everyone seems to be going the right way with remixing as your first option. i mean think about it the only way to get the most improvement out of a recorded song that you arent satisfied is to go and remix it. That would yeild the most possibilites.

I guess if you arent aable to do that, send the tape away to a mastering engineer. there are TONS. but its pricey man. You could probably rent a mid line studio, go in a perform the song actually better then before and get an even better mix in the long run for the price you pay for an engineer to touch up the mistakes. Although he probably could fix these goofs, there is nothing better then having no goofs at all.

take it easy,
Luke
 
if you need mastering...

hi,

rox here, from Long Wave Studio. well if you want mastering, i do cheap deals ONLY for the people on BBS. just to help y'all out cus i think we're all here to help each other, right?!

for the guy with the problem (musically only!), give me an e-mail at guitargod@btinternet.com and we can talk about mastering your track (s).

-rox.
 
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