post mastering EQ

[peterkern23]

Hi guys,



I have had a track mastered professionally, but i feel it needs a little eq to suit my tastes. Could i do this in cubase without ruining the audio quality of the mastering? It would be just simple eq work nothing else, which i am capable of doing.



Thanks,



Pete

 

[Chibi Nappa]

Sounds dangerous. It will at least be possible if it is a cut...but there might not be any headroom left for a boost.

Work it out with the mastering engineer. See how much he will charge (if any) to do a correction.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

I have had a track mastered professionally, but i feel it needs a little eq to suit my tastes. Could i do this in cubase without ruining the audio quality of the mastering? It would be just simple eq work nothing else, which i am capable of doing.

Hey Pete,

There is no law that says you have to accept work you are unhappy with from an engineering service. If they didn't do the job you wanted from them, *tell them* and have them get it right. If it was indeed mastered professionally, the mastering service should have no issues with taking your direction and re-mastering it for you.

Perhaps one of the more common problems that hired pro engineers have with newb acts is that they can only guess what the act actually wants from them because they actually get very little direction from them.

Somebody has to act as the producer and give the direction, otherwise you'll never get what you want.

G.

 

[Massive Master]

Keeping in mind here that there's always 'wiggle room' for preference -

Tell the guy (gal?) that everything is fine but you'd like a little more (?) or a whisker less (?) on it.

It's not a rare thing - It's a preference.

At least, we're assuming that you're "happy" with it except for an EQ tweak. Had one last week that actually sent a photo of a graphic EQ (with a 1.5dB dip at 800Hz). Necessary? For the client, yes. And sometimes clients will ask for "a little brighter" or "a little darker" or what not.

 

[Waltz Mastering]

I have had a track mastered professionally, but i feel it needs a little eq to suit my tastes. Could i do this in cubase without ruining the audio quality of the mastering? It would be just simple eq work nothing else, which i am capable of doing.

It's not unheard of.

If you can't or don't want to have the original ME take care of it, you can attenuate the mix a hair > do your eq changes > limit a hair and re-dither if your new processing was done at a higher bit depth.

 

[newcomputeruser]

maybe

Hi guys,

I have had a track mastered professionally, but i feel it needs a little eq to suit my tastes. Could i do this in cubase without ruining the audio quality of the mastering? It would be just simple eq work nothing else, which i am capable of doing.

Thanks,

Pete

sure you could do it in cubase ,
back up the track or
rip a new wave file if its on cd now
play with it and see if you can make it better
nothing lost
you still have your original mastered track

the mastered track should have been made to sound good in any environment so
if you only play it in one location you may need to tweak it some to make it perfect for that case. realise that the new eq may not sound so good if you listen elsewhere.

best to lower some freqs with eq to balance it not boost the other freqs

was that professional master job done by a full time master engineer in a studio set up for mastering? or was it some part time guy doing it in his home? how good were the mixes that got sent?

is your room and speakers as good as the guy who mastered?
maybe he did it right, maybe he didnt.

 

[masteringhouse]

Dithering, particularly noise shaped dither, should only be done once. Also you may be missing out on proper error checking and documentation if this is on CD.

I would suggest sending the ME your EQed version to demonstrate what you want to acheive. If he is good he will likely come back with something closer to your version and sounding even better!

 

[axeman_ukl]

isn't what you are asking to do what happens on every stereo/hifi on the planet everybody sets their own eq on the hifi to what sounds right to them or to the room their in ?

but i would be inclined to try the mastered mix on as many hifi's as you can it may just be your room .

 

[dintymoore]

... i feel it needs a little eq to suit my tastes. Could i do this in cubase without ruining the audio quality of the mastering? ...

No problem. Just get the eq the way you like and then export a new version. You're just messing with a copy so there's no risk.

I would avoid boosting eq if you can.

I hope you're doing this on a decent set of monitors in a decent room and not judging the mix on a system that's out in left field.