My Grand Master Plan. Tell me how its flawed, or how to improve.

[hiphop24360]

Ok, I attend a University, this university has a beautiful studio in the A/V department.

If I can get into this class, the final project is assigned in a way as such that I could go and use this beautiful studio whenever I want as long as I sign in. (and pretend Im working on my project, which is a song, so no problem there)

Recently I have found a way to acquire 4 to 6 tracked out beats. (not just an mp3 beat to record over)....Im thinking save the 4 to 6 tracked out beats for when I have access to the University Studio instead of my hardly treated room in the basement.

I plan to record my vocals in the university studio (around the tracked out beats obviously) and mix them with a sound engineer major buddy of mine.

I plan to keep plenty of headroom when I record and only do a mininum mix, no master fader used, than send the tracks off to "audio bay" (reputable although cheap mastering company) to be mastered

Do you think all these steps, (assuming that the actual music is good and my talent is on point) would be a good way to produce a fairly professional 4-6 track demo?

 

[TheChikenMaster]

if it sounds so good why make a demo? Go big!!

 

[RAMI]

I plan to keep plenty of headroom when I record and only do a mininum mix, no master fader used, than send the tracks off to "audio bay" (reputable although cheap mastering company) to be mastered

What do you mean by "minimum mix"? If you're sending it out to be mastered, it better be a "FINAL mix", with everything sounding exactly the way you want it to sound. Mastering won't make a mix sound any better than it's mixdown.

Also, I have no idea what you mean by "no master fader used".

 

[mikeeb]

What do you mean by "minimum mix"? If you're sending it out to be mastered, it better be a "FINAL mix", with everything sounding exactly the way you want it to sound. Mastering won't make a mix sound any better than it's mixdown.

Also, I have no idea what you mean by "no master fader used".

So what does mastering do besides making sure the flow of the album is good and has equal levels?

Edit: Rami I just listened to your stuff on your website, and its so fuckin good lol

 

[RAMI]

So what does mastering do besides making sure the flow of the album is good and has equal levels?

Edit: Rami I just listened to your stuff on your website, and its so fuckin good lol

Thanx alot Mike!

To answer your question, mixing and mastering are 2 seperate processes.

Mixing, as you are probably familiar with, involves mixing all your individual tracks, adding whatever effects you want on individual instruments, panning, etc....to create a stereo representation of your song.

Once you have that final mix, you can get it mastered, which involves taking the stereo mix of the tune and adding (if necassarry) finishing touches like compression, EQ, etc....Mastering also involves putting a collection of songs together to create a coherent "album".

The reason I say mastering won't help a bad or un-finished mix is because, once the mix is done, it's done. It's now a 2-track stereo representation of the tune. Mastering can only polish that up so much. It will make a good mix sound better, but it won't save a bad mix from sounding bad.