how best do I warm up my masters

  • Thread starter Thread starter teeboy
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teeboy

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All my tracks are computer generated except of course my vocals which I record with an akg C 1000s, through samson's valve pre amp and finally through m audio fast track pro audio interface. I do d best I can to achieve a decent mix that has been applauded by both artistes n fellow producers alike. I also do my mastering myself using t tracks 3 exclusively, though my mastering cannot be said to be bad but when I AB test my job with major commercial releases I notice a kind of warmth or should I call it sheen that my mix is lacking.
Questions. What plugins can help, are these better applied during mixing or mastering, and does multiband limiting has anything to do with this. Pls u if u know any gud freeware that can help. Thanks.
 
Try getting a track mastered professionally & see if it matches the stuff you've been comparing yours with.
 
Warmth and sheen are normally 2 different things in my mind, warmth being lack of harshness, round bass, smooth highs overall not too bright. Sheen is often associated with top end "that NEVE high end sheen" so tricky to know what you mean... look at eq (enhancing lower mids or cutting upper mids), tape emulation, tube emulation, low pass filtering, gentle compression to smooth transients out or using a piece of analogue gear with a "warm" signal path. But I reckon you can get pretty far with just judicious eq if you are having a go yourself.

cheers

SafeandSound Mastering
Dance music mastering
 
First off, no professional mastering engineer uses t-racks. No professional mastering engineer uses the same monitors the songs were mixed on to master. No professional mastering engineer asks "how do I make my masters warmer?"

To answer your question directly: to warm things up, find the harshness and get rid of it. If that makes the song sound too dull, add some highs back at a higher frequency than the ones you took out to get rid of the harsh.

Multi-band compression or limiting is one of the easiest ways to choke the life out of your mix. If your mix is balanced, you should be able to get the volume you need out of it with a compressor and mastering limiter. Multi-bands are generally used for fixing out of balanced mixes that need help.
 
First off, no professional mastering engineer uses t-racks. No professional mastering engineer uses the same monitors the songs were mixed on to master. No professional mastering engineer asks "how do I make my masters warmer?"
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I'd go as far as to bet a short stack of cash that they're not recording vocals with C1000's either, or using Samson "toob" preamps in the chain.

I'm totally not trying to "start anything" here -- But it still fascinates me to no end that people with extremely "budget friendly" (for lack of a better term) gear and apparently limited experience seem to find it unusual that their recordings don't seem to stand up to recordings made by teams of audio professionals with aggregate decades of experience using some of the greatest gear on the planet at every possible phase of production.

I used to be absolutely thrilled to just make a listenable recording on my old "rookie rig" (keeping in mind that "rookie rigs" of years past didn't have nearly the quality of what's available these days and today's equipment is probably only 1/10th the cost).

THAT ALL SAID: If you're making reasonably solid recordings with what you have and you're making the most of it, there you go. At the mastering phase, I can't even tell you what I do to any particular mix to "create warmth and sheen" -- And I don't mean I won't tell you -- I mean I can't. Every mix is different and all I do is what the mixes tell me to do. If the mixes aren't telling you what to do after you're done, don't feel bad -- This is one of several reasons why there are different specialties for different phases of audio production. It's not that one person can't "do it all" to some extent -- But a "professional sounding recording" is typically and normally a team effort.
 
This is to thank everybody that reacted to my question, I am indeed grateful, now just add to the original question. If I am to invest in analouge gears to at least bring some warmth to my masters, which compressors or eq. Can u recommend , of course not the high end products but something to do a reasonable job without breaking the banks. Thanks.
 
teeboy said:
This is to thank everybody that reacted to my question, I am indeed grateful, now just add to the original question. If I am to invest in analouge gears to at least bring some warmth to my masters, which compressors or eq. Can u recommend , of course not the high end products but something to do a reasonable job without breaking the banks. Thanks.
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Do you even READ any of the responses?
 
teeboy said:
This is to thank everybody that reacted to my question, I am indeed grateful, now just add to the original question. If I am to invest in analouge gears to at least bring some warmth to my masters, which compressors or eq. Can u recommend , of course not the high end products but something to do a reasonable job without breaking the banks. Thanks.
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cart, before horse.
 
First, render your tracks to 2 channel stereo wav files (preferably 24bit). Then add some compression and eq to tighten things up. Then run it through a good brickwall limiter. Settings may vary but the output ceiling should be set to -0.3db to avoid overs. Then you want to use some sort of Quantization before converting it back to 16bit. Then open Nero and burn them to a CD. Make sure to use DAO mode. Then go into the kitchen and get a metal cooking sheet and spray it with non-stick cooking spray and pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. Place CD in center of middle rack and bake for 5-7 minutes or until golden brown. Enjoy a much warmer master. :P
 
Murdersgalore said:
First, render your tracks to 2 channel stereo wav files (preferably 24bit). Then add some compression and eq to tighten things up. Then run it through a good brickwall limiter. Settings may vary but the output ceiling should be set to -0.3db to avoid overs. Then you want to use some sort of Quantization before converting it back to 16bit. Then open Nero and burn them to a CD. Make sure to use DAO mode. Then go into the kitchen and get a metal cooking sheet and spray it with non-stick cooking spray and pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. Place CD in center of middle rack and bake for 5-7 minutes or until golden brown. Enjoy a much warmer master. :P
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Serve with fennel and balsamic jus. Bon appetit.
 
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