Diving into Mastering...

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Stealthtech

Stealthtech

LOGIC ABUSER
I have had great success in mixing over time but now I am diving into mastering. I havn't had time to read up on it and I could use some pointers. Im under the impression that mastering is done as a finishing touch to a complete CD of mixes and not to each song individually ??? Is this correct ?
I have a collection of 15 finished songs. I did a bounce of all songs down to 1 track. I then imported the track to T-racks and also sound forge for 2 different samples. I applied levelers, compression, & other effects to my liking and created a master which I reviewed on several media playing devices. Sounded great only the CD players will only recognize the one track.
Which leads me back to my first question, Do you master each song or as a whole. It seems only logical to master as a whole so you can level all your songs to the same range. Give them all the same feel....right ?
What might I be doing right or wrong ?
Is there a KISS method or basic flight plan to follow ?
Just looking for some quick pointers on this subject, not a book.
Although I know mastering is not a simple task and will take many years of experimentation I would just like to get the basics straight to get started in the right direction.

Using Logic Audio 5.2
Sound Forge 6.0
Cool Edit Pro 2000
T-Racks
Wave Labs

Thanks,
Stealthtech
 
I'm not sure I understand your question, so forgive me if my answer is not relevent to what you wish to know.

You master one song at a time. You have to do this so that the CD will have seperate tracks, unless for some reason you want the whole CD to be one long track.

In order to balance levels from song to song, you need to be able to switch back and forth and compare elements like lead vocals and drums. Some software allows this easily (like Sonic Solutions). Other software doesn't (like Pro Tools).

Aside from setting levels, mastering also may involve adding compression and EQ. Then there is adjusting start and end points and fades. Cleaning up noise, and removing pops or clicks may also be done - but often that involves more advanced software.

One of main purposes of mastering is to make the CD sound good on a wide variety of systems. That is the hardest part for the amateur mastering engineer to do, because it requires trained ears in addition to good quality gear and a great listening space.
 
One view of mastering is that it is the process of transforming a collection of mixes into a collective whole, your CD, which is greater than the sum of its parts.

I find the biggest challenges for my "home mastering" are getting the relative levels of the tracks right so they don't send you diving for the remote, and not effing things up with a bunch of eq and compression.

As for levels, not every song is meant to be the same volume, but your soft ballad still needs to be heard. Some think the answer is to normalize. They are mistaken.

As for eq at the mastering stage, I try to err on the side of conservatism. I ask myself first, could this move have been better accomplished in the mix? Meaning, could some fader moves or individual track eq in the mix have done more effectively what I'm now trying to do to the overall mix? Real mastering engineers have eq units that cost more than my parent's house, and they apply it subtly when they do use it. Me trying to compensate for a mix fault I should have caught earlier by sticking a plug-in on the overall is scarcely a good substitute.

-kent
 
I think your question mainly refers to having only one track show up on your CD player - this is because your album is now all one wav file as you stated. If you're (reasonably) happy with the sound of the collection as you now have it, the next step will be to separate the individual songs back into separate wav files. This is what Littledog meant by mastering each song separately. I'm not where I can open Sound forge at the moment and I normally use Samplitude for this, so I can't help with commands, but you need to assign markers/regions where the song start/end times are, and save each region as a separate wav file. Then import these into your CD burning SW and burn that image to CD.

There were several good points made regarding levels - it is a very subjective thing, and no waveform editor or normalizing algorithm can do it right. Only your ears will work for this, and Littledog's comment about being able to jump back and forth quickly is probably the most useful tool you would have.

Mainly, you need as many wav files as you have songs before you burn a CD, or a consumer CD player will see only one song.
 
Stealthtech said:
I did a bounce of all songs down to 1 track. I then imported the track to T-racks and also sound forge for 2 different samples. I applied levelers, compression, & other effects to my liking and created a master which I reviewed on several media playing devices. Sounded great only the CD players will only recognize the one track.


Thanks,
Stealthtech


If you have already bounced down into one track then all you have is one wav file containing all the audio from 15 songs right?

This is pretty common, usually Ill assemble and set apparent levels, cross fades, fade in and fade outs. You can do this on Sadie, Sonic Solutions, Nuendo, or any multitrack software. Most homies do one song at a time and its easier but may be a little slower. What your missing is the ability to set your track markers, index or whats known as your P's and Q 's (P, Q codes). I know that Fuerio is a good , it allows .wav and track splitting without effecting the original wav. Check it out at http://www.feurio.com. Its was recommended to my by a Mastering Engineer some time ago who was helping me on a project. What nice about things like fuerio it allow you to mark and preview the transitions to make sure the levels flow before you burn to cdr. Oh... and Fuerio is free :eek:

Happy Hunting

SoMm
 
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