Help Me Master

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tddrummer

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I wanted to post a song or two that i have been recording and see what you guys think. I know first of all that there is problems with the low end..it sounds good on my moniters but when i put it in my truck it sounds "rumbly".

The drums where tracked on one channel so there is only editing them as a whole. I know there are issues with the pannin of the vox as well. Everything else is interchangeable.

Any tips welcome from panning eq..tell me what sucks..even if the singin does..lol..Thanks ahead, here it is..

http://soundclick.com/circleofmansions
 
If you're having so many mix issues, the last thing you should be worried about is the mastering phase...
 
you probably don't have a bass bin with your monitors and your mixing so as your mix sounds good and full in your listening area which I'm sure has a lot more sq. footage than inside your truck or a car which is a lot more smaller area - hence way to much bass.

Most of a lot of mixes go through the car stereo test. For that's where the majority of music is listen to. Just to make sure that the bass balance along with stereo spread, and well just about every thing in the mix and how they sit in the mix, etc sound in a vehicle. So it's just an other critical listen area.

But once you have it so it sounds real good on your car stereo it may not sound good in the studio. So you either need bass bins in your studio and get to know that sound of your monitors with them so it sounds good there and in your car stereo which is two different sound areas in which one must find the happy medium.
Or remix what you have now till it sounds good on your car stereo (a lot of back and forth)then you'll note that it sounds wimpy in your studio monitors that have no bass bins, but get to know that sound for that sound is what will sound good outside of your studio.
After a while you'll know exactly what it is suppose to sound like in your studio with out going back and fourth from car to studio a hundred times maybe just a few.
Then you'll be crusin' the strip listening to some great stuff.
 
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Very nicely said!
And as massive said worry about the mix before the mastering phase.
I do believe that is what he meant in the first place "help me with my mix". Just another confusion of terms.
Come one guys learn the terms and read a little.
 
mix that sucker with the tips/advice given, get yourself ozone 4 ... test the presets out, adjust/edit them to your preference... if you don't like them make your own. :D youtube "ozone" to see what im talking about and how much better it makes the songs sound.

good luck!! :D
 
tddrummer said:
I wanted to post a song or two that i have been recording and see what you guys think. I know first of all that there is problems with the low end..it sounds good on my moniters but when i put it in my truck it sounds "rumbly".

The drums where tracked on one channel so there is only editing them as a whole. I know there are issues with the pannin of the vox as well. Everything else is interchangeable.

Any tips welcome from panning eq..tell me what sucks..even if the singin does..lol..Thanks ahead, here it is..

http://soundclick.com/circleofmansions
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I'm not sure which song you're actually talking about, and I don't wish to go checking all five of them. I checked out the first one, "Seattle", which is probably not the one you're talking about since there are no vocals in it, and very little of "everything else" to be "interchangeable", since it's just doubled/wide guitar, bass(?) and mono drums doing a study of a basic guitar riff. (BTW, you're probably not doing yourself any favors tagging that track on SoundClick as "Acoustic: Acoustic Rock ;) )

But FWIW, I notice very little super-unusual about the technical mix on that track that should cause the problems you're describing, though there are a few areas for improvement:

First, your right channel is unnecessarily clipping in many locations throughout the song. That could be giving your car speakers some momentary problems at the clips.

Second, you have a fairly prominent bass peak in the 80-100Hz area. This in and of itself is not that alarming, but it sounds like it's a combination of your guitars and bass. Frankly, it's not easy to tell in superficial/recreational listening mode whether there's any bass in there because if it's there it's mostly doubling the guitar line and in turn being masked by it. Either try getting more creative with a bass line for that riff, or try notching out the bass freqs on the guitars to let the bass itself come through (and perhaps tame that 100Hz bump a little.)

Third, you might want to high pass the individual tracks or the mix as your sub-bass roll off is pretty shallow; you still have a significant amount of energy going on down to DC. That mud can mess with smaller speakers with flabby bass response.

Take care of this stuff in mixing, not after mixdown. And frankly, there's nothing I described that can't be handled just fine with native processing and 15 minutes worth of work (except maybe the suggestion of a better bass arrangement.)

G.
 
One thing for sure that I would NOT recommend is anything like (and including) Ozone...

Do what YOUR EARS tell you to do. Don't start swinging a hammer when the job requires tweezers.

Ozone on its own isn't "evil" - But I've personally heard far more damage than help that's ever come from it... Even from experienced engineers.
 
^ do not listen!

make your own research first and decide for yourself. google it, check the videos out on youtube and see what consumers say about it. it is one of the best investments i've made. good luck!
 
Yeah, because we all know what a bastion of truth, fact and righteousness those YouTube videos are :rolleyes:. That place makes Wikipedia look like the OED.

Look, tddrummer, if you want to get this stuff right in more than short-term self-gratification (there's a different word beginning with "master" for that), then steer clear of magic bullets falsely called "mastering tools" and get the mix right first. And in the case of the track I checked out anyway, no special tools - "mastering" or otherwise - are needed for that.

G.
 
xxl said:
^ do not listen!

make your own research first and decide for yourself. google it, check the videos out on youtube and see what consumers say about it. it is one of the best investments i've made. good luck!
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I'd suggest *DO* listen.

I sort of do this for a living (and have been in one form or another since before you were born).

(God, I hate playing that card...)

It's not like I don't suggest things that actually help - It's just rarely that I'd suggest something like Ozone... If he was asking "Hey - I'm looking for something to throw the low end (or midrange, or highs) out of phase so they twist your head around and disappear in mono" I'd suggest Ozone - Hands down. If he was saying "I'd like to add a lot of distortion in a multi-band fashion to my mixes so it sounds really cool at first but makes your ears bleed after 10 minutes" I'd say "Hey - Try Ozone." Been there. Used that. I'm actually on the Izotope list (I regularly use their RX restoration suite). So I'm not exactly "bashing" here -- And again - Ozone on its own isn't the bad thing. I know several facilities that use it (just for the dithering, but that's for another thread).

When it's being used by someone who really knows what he's doing with it you can get decent results from it. Not nearly as good as just using a good EQ and compressor plug (IMO/E), but it's okay.

When it's being used as a "pick a preset and go off that" tool, you're almost always doing more damage than good. But it's the same with any other plug - Certainly not exclusive to Ozone. It's just that Ozone makes it exceptionally easy to exceptionally screw up an otherwise decent mix.

But as XXL mentioned - By all means - Do your own research. Find out how many professional mastering engineers use Ozone as a primary processing tool (which would be the only reasonable comparison).

Your (The OP's obvious) issue is your monitoring chain / room. Ozone isn't going to do anything for that.
 
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Electronic Musician Magazine presents it's 2010 Editors Choice Awards ;


The Pick for the Signal Processing Software catagory is a tie between 2CAudio Aether ( quite a nice algo reverb ) and .................. (drum roll please .............)

iZotope Ozone 4


http://emusician.com/ms/editors_choice/signal_processing_software/



The quality and variety of today's software tools for polishing your audio recordings are unprecedented. That makes it especially difficult to pick just one winner in this category. After much deliberation, two worthy recipients have come to a draw. For stereo mastering, no software has caught on more quickly than iZotope Ozone 4. This multiformat plug-in gives you six independent processors under one roof, with functions including a mastering reverb and multiband stereo imaging. With new features such as mid/side processing, parallel compression and more visual feedback than ever, Ozone 4 is an obvious winner.
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The real problem is that products like these need to be flown by an experienced pilot , who MIGHT use a preset to get them in the ballpark and then dial it in from there . Expecting to use your hastilly set up multi-media computer speakers in a un-treated room to power scroll through the pre-sets of a mix you finished yourself an hour ago is more of an issue than the quality of the latest generation of DSP software ; ..The dsp only getts better and better from here on out as the HP of the hardware goes bonkers .
Tools are one thing , and there is also the aspect that a pro M.E. has some great analog stuff to put in the chain as well as all there experience ( for which there is no substitute...)



So I agree with Massive in as much as he's saying that you should'nt think that you'll be in the fast lane too performing an incredable job of finalizing your own stuff if you only run out and buy the latest and the greatest widgets that you have'nt an intiment knowledge of how to properly use .

No short cuts . It's another discipline ( mastering), and ; you can of course obtain those skills , but the customary dues paying will be a part of the equasion.



.
 
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flatfinger said:
The real problem is that products like these need to be flown by an experienced pilot
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And the irony is that if you're an experienced pilot, you'll probably never need Ozone once you get to mastering, because you'll have handled the "problems" in mixing. It's a catch-22; the ones who will most need Ozone in mastering to fix their mixes will be those most unqualified to use it.

Just like any *tool* in any discipline, it's not the tool that matters, it's knowing how to use it. Norm Abrams can do more, better, faster with a hand chisel than Homer Simpson could ever do with a laser-guided CNC machine.

Once again, no one else has actually looked at the material at hand. Admittedly I only checked out one of his offerings, but on that one example there's absolutely no need for something like Ozone. There's nothing wrong with that mix that can't rather quickly and easily addressed with whatever native tools he has. It's 20 minutes away from being just fine. What that mix requires is mixing technique, not "mastering tools". And even if the OP had Ozone, it wouldn't help because he still did not know how to analyze the mix and figure out just what needed to be done, regardless of which tools he had in his belt.

G.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
And the irony is that if you're an experienced pilot, you'll probably never need Ozone once you get to mastering, because you'll have handled the "problems" in mixing. It's a catch-22; the ones who will most need Ozone in mastering to fix their mixes will be those most unqualified to use it.
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And once again, the system response was:
You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to SouthSIDE Glen again.
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Massive Master said:
And once again, the system response was:
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I also take cash :p.

Don't worry about it, John; the bogus points rigging on this board have unfortunately blocked me from giving them to you more times than I can remember, I'm sure in the large scheme of things we're probably pretty equal in that regard.

G.
 
So as stated before use the gear that you have first before purchasing any magic beans -maybe some studio bass bins- and get those ears working for you. They came FREE and they are the best tool you have!
 
moresound said:
So as stated before use the gear that you have first before purchasing any magic beans -maybe some studio bass bins- and get those ears working for you. They came FREE and they are the best tool you have!
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Green chiclets for you.
 
xxl said:
^ do not listen!

make your own research first and decide for yourself. google it, check the videos out on youtube and see what consumers say about it. it is one of the best investments i've made. good luck!
Click to expand...

Massive Master said:
I'd suggest *DO* listen.

I sort of do this for a living (and have been in one form or another since before you were born).
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Youtubers vs. an experienced mastering engineer. It's a toss up :rolleyes:

The way I see it is, if the OP decides to listen to the advice and does the hard work for himself, he'll be fine. If he doesn't, checks out youtube and gets Ozone to destroy his tracks, there's not much you can do other than save your breath.
 
philbagg said:
Youtubers vs. an experienced mastering engineer. It's a toss up :rolleyes:

The way I see it is, if the OP decides to listen to the advice and does the hard work for himself, he'll be fine. If he doesn't, checks out youtube and gets Ozone to destroy his tracks, there's not much you can do other than save your breath.
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Beyond my personal feelings about Ozone - It was never even the issue (I'm not even particularly sure who brought it up).

He's having room issues - Whether he understands it or not. The fix is to fix the room. It's not a processing thing in the first place.
 
Hey you have a nice Neil Young vibe going there on 'False Against Weakness. Nice tones too. I'm on headphones, didn't here rumble' but a few b-pops around 2:00.
That kind of low end stuff- likely high pass on the offending track(s), done.
 
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