Ok, so once I finished levelling, adding effects and panning my tracks I should bounce down all of them? I think I should make a copy of the whole project before doing it, am i right?
Anyway, after bouncing them what should I do? (I know I should probably ask this question in the Mastering section, but if you are willing to answer me here I will really appreciate it!)
After you have your final mix bounced down then comes the mastering stage where the mastering eng finalizes the mastered sound of your Two Track bounced down mix. In my opinion if you care bout your music and you really want you mix polished to an expertise then send your mix to a mastering engineer if you have no knowledge of mastering. "Do It Your self mastering" with no knowledge of the art NEVER EVER ends well trust me. But if you do want to learn the art of mastering (
in the mean time while your sending those lovely recording to those mastering engineers ) until you learn the art then. My best advice look up mastering studio's in your area and go check them out and try to learn from the professionals there in your local area, also we have plenty of people that are willing to help you right here. For me its just to much typing I think I would need to purchase
Dragon Nuance before I try to start explaining to a young eng the art of mastering and it still wont work out lol.
BUT Simon I will give you a basic setup...WARNING!!! This is not a setup for your songs, this is not a guideline for your songs, this not the rule of guidelines or the best approach DO NOT I REPEAT! DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME on your mix's. This is purely hypothetical
Essentially in theory of mastering a basic mastering set up is something similar to this...
Gain - You start with gain as some mastering setups start with a little gain at first
EQ - then into EQ cut bad frequencies boost good ones,
Compression - most use a mastering compressor for punch in the master.
Limiter - Last, the limiter which sets the overall loudness of your mix.
Addiotonal steps...
Multiband Compression - Multi-Band Compression is used to add compression to certain frequency bands instead of the entire mix it is more dynamic and intuitive it is setting look up the Waves - LinMB and you will see what I am talking about.
Mid/Side - Mid/Side technique uses a matrix to split the mix into a MID - instruments and parts that were panned in the middle and SIDE - parts of the mx that were panned to the left and right. This technieq is used alot in mastering (
my definition of the actual technology is alot more complex but again were just keeping it simple and basic.)
Also this is without explaining equipment, setup, monitoring system, converters, components, wiring, routing, cabling, etc. and most of all EXPERIENCE of a mastering engineer.
The #1 guideline to mastering is that there IS NO guidelines to mastering it is clearly situational thats why it takes a good, well equipped mastering engineer with a TON of experience so he has situational awareness of music when mastering. (Huh? you like that last statement huh Massive? lol)
We have some really good mastering engineers you can acquire service & knowledge from right here in this forum one is
Massive Mastering