Mastering and automation

[Vigo]

Was just wondering if those 2 are friends? do you guys use lots of automation in mastering?

 

[BroKen_H]

I'm not sure you'd call what I do "mastering", but I don't automate that step at all. I do lots of automation during mixing, but not during mastering and only once ever during tracking.

 

[DM60]

I will be honest, and some of the more professional folks here can better define the term mastering. For me, as close as I have ever come to how I would define mastering is getting a set of songs to sound like they belong together. Make sure they are all close to the same loudness (not volume), that the sound EQ levels close to each other and when I play the collection, I am not turning the music up and down.

IMO, rather than worry about mastering, focusing on mixing should be the main priority for the majority of us here. But I am a noob as well and may be speaking out of turn here.

 

[bouldersoundguy]

Automation can certainly be used in mastering. For example, a song that alternates between quiet and loud may benefit from an automated volume adjustment to make the difference in level less drastic.

 

[Massive Master]

Often. Easy example would be tracks with a lot of tape (or some other sort of) hiss -- Automating a high shelf to come down along with the fade to reduce the noise faster than the fade. And certainly volume...

 

[MrWrenchey]

I think it was Dave Pensado that recently posted a video of how he automates overall volume during mastering to keep the dynamic feel to a song.

Ex: drop the volume by 0.5dB on the 2 and 4 beats to make it seems like 1 and 3 are hitting harder even after limiting.

Actually just found the video for ya: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfWahnI59Nc

 

[Waltz Mastering]

Was just wondering if those 2 are friends? do you guys use lots of automation in mastering?

Really whatever the song calls for, but on quite a few songs/projects I find myself mainly automating bands on an itb eq where the outboard eq almost always remains static. ...although I did a project yesterday where I adjusted the outboard eq for different sections as well.

I also automate de-essers only to catch the worst offenders of sibilance and do level automation a bit (when needed) but usually in not more than 1/2 dB increments.

 

[SafeandSound]

Firstly fades spring to mind.... very frequent. And yes it is fairly frequent to use automation, vocal pop removal, a multi-band threshold to de-ess only when there is a problem and of course in stem mastering. Why not ? If a problem exists and can only be resolved in mastering (if no mix changes are possible) then automation is a powerful tool to correct problems. It could be as simply as automating a fader in the intro/outro to get it sitting nicely with tracks before and after or automating a single parameter in a compressor or equalizer.

cheers

Barry Gardner
SafeandSound Mastering
Stem mastering by Barry Gardner

 

[mixsit]

I think it was Dave Pensado that recently posted a video of how he automates overall volume during mastering to keep the dynamic feel to a song.

Ex: drop the volume by 0.5dB on the 2 and 4 beats to make it seems like 1 and 3 are hitting harder even after limiting. ..

Yikes That'd be a lot of bumps' (well, dips' :>)
For us doing our home brews though, that'd be a case where it's.. 'Go back to the frikin MIX!

 

[MrWrenchey]

Haha, that's why he uses the "square wave" pencil tool in Pro Tools. Click at the start, drag to the end, and move the tool up or down to decide how many dBs of difference between dips and peaks!

Not sure if any other DAWs have that capability, but it's a treat to have in PT...

 

[BroKen_H]

Haha, that's why he uses the "square wave" pencil tool in Pro Tools. Click at the start, drag to the end, and move the tool up or down to decide how many dBs of difference between dips and peaks!

Not sure if any other DAWs have that capability, but it's a treat to have in PT...

In Reason, it's called Selig Leveler. Does the same, but it's a $70 rack extension.