Last of the new newbies

Veance

Veance

Member
Sounds like a title for a movie...
Hi, I gues i'm the newest newbie here. My name is Veance and I'm playing guitar for a while now. I never gotten into a band but nonetheless I like creating music.
There's always music playing in my head. When I make music I can hear how it should sound like but the difficult part of course is translating it into something real. There are so much to choose in sounds, rythm, fx, vst's. But for me the most difficult thing is mastering. I wrote a few songs now and none sound like they should. And people tell me it's because of volume, or lack of compressing, bad voice recording...But I know i will learn a lot here.
 
Don't worry about mastering at this point. Just get the mixes to sound right first, and hone those skills. You say that you "wrote a few songs" and "none sound like they should," but that's got nothing to do with the fact that you haven't "mastered" them yet. I guarantee you that. What have you done? Did you record several tracks and then mix those tracks? You don't say what exactly you're doing with your tunes. Which DAW, if any? What kind of room are you recording in? What computer, what interface? We would need to know that kind of thing. Mastering is the last thing you do . . . if you do it at all! The first thing you do is get things up to speed as far as your playing, recording, and mixing skills go. I've recorded and mixed and bounced down dozens and dozens of songs at this point, and I've never mastered a single one of those tracks. I get them up to the volume and level that approximates about what they should be for commercial release, but that's it. I just want to get them loud enough so myself and clients and friends can listen to a song that ain't too quiet in relation to the commercial releases they've got playing on their car stereos and mp3 players. When the songs are finally ready to be mastered, the final link in the chain, I . . . send them to a mastering engineer, and he masters the songs.

Can you master your own stuff? Sure. But unless you know what you're doing, and you've got a really good room and the right equipment, you will be wasting your time. I know folks will come in here and say you can master your own stuff, or that they do it and it works. Which I'm sure it does for them. But for you, you're starting at the wrong end of the chain. You don't need to worry about mastering. Forget about that for now. Give us more information about your setup, what you're doing and trying to accomplish, and we'll go from there.
 
Thanks for your answer. I might be using all the names wrong. Maybe it's not even mastering at all, like you mentioned. I want , of course that my tracks sound like they should, I believe my tracks even sound different in volume on other speakers. But first things first, I use a audiointerface (steinberg UR44C) and my DAW is ableton live 10. I use guitar rig 5 for bass and guitar recordings. I sometimes even use it for voice recordings. And then ezdrummer 2 for percussion. And I have a basic keybaord and an arturia keyboard with analog lab for extra's and some other vst's. I use 2 JBL 305P MK2 speakers as monitors. My mic is a devine BM-600 on a broadcast tripod.
 
You have what you need to make some good recordings--I have an Arturia keyboard, and Analog Lab is very good indeed! From what you're saying it sounds like your levels are all over the place--try posting up some of your mixes at the mp3 clinic here so we can get a listen to what's going on with your songs. I think you may be confusing mastering with just getting levels consistent, which is very important, as you're discovering. There's no shortage of websites and YouTubers talking about mastering, and that you should do it, or need to do it, so I'm not surprised at confusion on the part of newcomers. What is the room you're recording, and probably listening in, like? A bedroom? And, when you record vocals, do you use the tripod?
 
Ok, I ve placed a post on the mp3 clinic. It contains a link to a soundcloud page. The room I record every thing in, is my recreational room filled with 2 Amps, a pedalrack, keyboards a pc with 2 screen for ableton, a desk and some bookshelfs. Oh, and my wife claimed a corner for clothes😅
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top