RedStone
Active member
There's a reason professional musicians use different people for different stages of a release.
I've learned to laugh at self-mastering (though I still try because I am stubborn and want to learn so if this is you, don't stop). But I ultimately now leave it to the pros I trust for my new releases. The tools that really great mastering engineers use and the things they do to coax tone out of a mix make my head spin. And it's nothing I can do myself (even with AI). Once I got close, and it was an accident.
I think any conversation about mastering needs to be a conversation about a mix as a whole, and what can ruin a mix (it's endless ... But as you get better at it, there are things that will derail you if you aren't paying attention to your intuition about what sounds sweet).
The thing that will surely ruin your mix, and make self mastering impossible is bad monitoring, which includes poor speaker placement, poor room acoustics, sitting in the wrong place in a room, moving forward in your chair for too long if close monitoring, or never checking a mix on excellent headphones.
For example, I discovered that I was sitting in the middle of a 125hz node in my new mixing room. No wonder my mixes were messed up and ended up either too brittle or too boomy (as I attempted to guess at how to correct things as I tested on different speakers and headphones). I trusted my monitoring, and it would be decent if it was in a neutral space - but because I was sitting in the wrong spot in the room, it was not fine at all!
The better the mix is, the better and easier it will be to coax a passable master, even by a relative novice. Use of compression, EQ and limiting, polarity checks, and width adjustment are the fundamental tools of mastering, but there is SO much more.
Everything in music can be categorized as timing, volume and tone. Compression can change volume, timing AND tone. Buss compression that isn't parallel is like a loaded weapon. Be careful with it.
And limiting ... Throw an LA2A on a vocal track and dial up to more extreme settings in compression mode. It's more or less limiting. Not that I would use an LA2A as a final limiter, but I do use the SSL stereo compressor on a parallel buss to beef up many mixes.
If you can't hear a bad mix (which can range from poor timing, sharp or boomy reverb tails, spicy acoustic guitars, sizzly hats, splashy cymbals, bad mix placement, too powerful bass, subtle wrong notes and tuning issues, whether it's a snare fundamental or a bad vocal note), you'll really struggle to pull off mastering. But if you mixes are good, and just need to be sweetened and loudness maximized, then likely you might have a slight monitoring issue of some sort, or you might need to pass it off because you are too used to the sound of your song and can't find the objective stance you need to finalize it.
The other thing is to let go of the idea that you can use stock plugins to make something sound truly amazing. Ok, some people maybe can but I couldn't.
What you can do is use them to learn quite a lot. but truthfully, My world was transformed when I switched to better microphones ($600+) UAD hardware/plugins and brainworkx plugins. Just saying. I am the same person I was when using stock plugins a year ago. Everything has changed now, but it was a steep learning curve learning from industry professionals how to listen for tonal quality changes. The best mix engineers I think can sense slight changes, and can figure out the right mix of elements to pull off what they want to hear with polish.
The basic tricks for coaxing good sound (monitors aside) can be boiled to this:
- Record through the best gear you can afford. Focusrite 4i4 etc might be amazing for their class, but they aren't amazing in the world of interfaces. Their just fine, if that's what you want.
- you don't "need" to record at 192khz. 48khz is plenty for excellent depth and quality, and you'll be able to run many more tracks and FX. But hey if you have a room of apple Xtreme space computers or whatever, by all means go to 192khz. Personally, I think it's wasteful and the quality isn't noticably better than 48khzI. think it's because downsampling filters have gotten excellent. The old maudio FireWire 18/18 I remember had terrible downsampling filters so I HAD to record at 96khz to get good sound ... But that's not the case with the latest generation of even entry level Focusrite, UAD volt etc). 48khz is the sweet spot.
- Precision modelling of analog gear (like channel strips, tape machines) is fundamental
- Parallel processing
- FX bussing
- Group Busses (eg vocals, drums, acoustics, electric guitar, synths) for more global processing of EQ, compression etc.
- Mono checks (helps with checking panning - lower volume in mono can just mean something is panned too hard. It could also mean it's too quiet overall, so you need to switch back and forth to check.
- Automation (volume, FX parameters)
- Comping/takes and editing (for timing, tuning, blips and clicks, fades)
There's a reason some things stand the test of time (like LA2A, Pultecs, Ampeg SVT, SSL, Neve, and the waves stuff that at least used to get knocked in the home recording world).
I still do reach for stock things for specific tasks where I just need a bit of this or that, but I'm learning that when seriously hunting for tone, to look for things that will give me serious tone.
Anyway, I'm writing this to kill some time. Hope it's somewhat helpful.
I've learned to laugh at self-mastering (though I still try because I am stubborn and want to learn so if this is you, don't stop). But I ultimately now leave it to the pros I trust for my new releases. The tools that really great mastering engineers use and the things they do to coax tone out of a mix make my head spin. And it's nothing I can do myself (even with AI). Once I got close, and it was an accident.
I think any conversation about mastering needs to be a conversation about a mix as a whole, and what can ruin a mix (it's endless ... But as you get better at it, there are things that will derail you if you aren't paying attention to your intuition about what sounds sweet).
The thing that will surely ruin your mix, and make self mastering impossible is bad monitoring, which includes poor speaker placement, poor room acoustics, sitting in the wrong place in a room, moving forward in your chair for too long if close monitoring, or never checking a mix on excellent headphones.
For example, I discovered that I was sitting in the middle of a 125hz node in my new mixing room. No wonder my mixes were messed up and ended up either too brittle or too boomy (as I attempted to guess at how to correct things as I tested on different speakers and headphones). I trusted my monitoring, and it would be decent if it was in a neutral space - but because I was sitting in the wrong spot in the room, it was not fine at all!
The better the mix is, the better and easier it will be to coax a passable master, even by a relative novice. Use of compression, EQ and limiting, polarity checks, and width adjustment are the fundamental tools of mastering, but there is SO much more.
Everything in music can be categorized as timing, volume and tone. Compression can change volume, timing AND tone. Buss compression that isn't parallel is like a loaded weapon. Be careful with it.
And limiting ... Throw an LA2A on a vocal track and dial up to more extreme settings in compression mode. It's more or less limiting. Not that I would use an LA2A as a final limiter, but I do use the SSL stereo compressor on a parallel buss to beef up many mixes.
If you can't hear a bad mix (which can range from poor timing, sharp or boomy reverb tails, spicy acoustic guitars, sizzly hats, splashy cymbals, bad mix placement, too powerful bass, subtle wrong notes and tuning issues, whether it's a snare fundamental or a bad vocal note), you'll really struggle to pull off mastering. But if you mixes are good, and just need to be sweetened and loudness maximized, then likely you might have a slight monitoring issue of some sort, or you might need to pass it off because you are too used to the sound of your song and can't find the objective stance you need to finalize it.
The other thing is to let go of the idea that you can use stock plugins to make something sound truly amazing. Ok, some people maybe can but I couldn't.
What you can do is use them to learn quite a lot. but truthfully, My world was transformed when I switched to better microphones ($600+) UAD hardware/plugins and brainworkx plugins. Just saying. I am the same person I was when using stock plugins a year ago. Everything has changed now, but it was a steep learning curve learning from industry professionals how to listen for tonal quality changes. The best mix engineers I think can sense slight changes, and can figure out the right mix of elements to pull off what they want to hear with polish.
The basic tricks for coaxing good sound (monitors aside) can be boiled to this:
- Record through the best gear you can afford. Focusrite 4i4 etc might be amazing for their class, but they aren't amazing in the world of interfaces. Their just fine, if that's what you want.
- you don't "need" to record at 192khz. 48khz is plenty for excellent depth and quality, and you'll be able to run many more tracks and FX. But hey if you have a room of apple Xtreme space computers or whatever, by all means go to 192khz. Personally, I think it's wasteful and the quality isn't noticably better than 48khzI. think it's because downsampling filters have gotten excellent. The old maudio FireWire 18/18 I remember had terrible downsampling filters so I HAD to record at 96khz to get good sound ... But that's not the case with the latest generation of even entry level Focusrite, UAD volt etc). 48khz is the sweet spot.
- Precision modelling of analog gear (like channel strips, tape machines) is fundamental
- Parallel processing
- FX bussing
- Group Busses (eg vocals, drums, acoustics, electric guitar, synths) for more global processing of EQ, compression etc.
- Mono checks (helps with checking panning - lower volume in mono can just mean something is panned too hard. It could also mean it's too quiet overall, so you need to switch back and forth to check.
- Automation (volume, FX parameters)
- Comping/takes and editing (for timing, tuning, blips and clicks, fades)
There's a reason some things stand the test of time (like LA2A, Pultecs, Ampeg SVT, SSL, Neve, and the waves stuff that at least used to get knocked in the home recording world).
I still do reach for stock things for specific tasks where I just need a bit of this or that, but I'm learning that when seriously hunting for tone, to look for things that will give me serious tone.
Anyway, I'm writing this to kill some time. Hope it's somewhat helpful.
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