Prep for Mastering

  • Thread starter Thread starter Muffin
  • Start date Start date
M

Muffin

New member
I'm looking into getting my songs mastered. It seems to be the best route to get the best overall product and thats what I want.
I understand roughly what mastering is but not how to prep my song to be ready for mastering.

Are there limitations to my mix down?(compression, EQ, effects, plug-ins etc?)

Secondly, what do I send to the Mastering engineers?(and exported WAV. of the song?)

Finally, who would you recommend that does mastering? I don't have alot of cash to dish out for the services but I'd be looking for someone who does a good job without breaking the bank.

Thanks,
 
There are three mastering engineers who contribute a lot to the HR boards. I like to give priority to them because they do bring a lot here.

Mastering House
Massive Mastering
and
Waltz Mastering

Search for them here on the site and send them an email. Massive has a pre-submission checklist on his website. You might find it helpful.
 
Im not a mastering engineer, nor am I anywhere close but...

Make sure you give enough headroom on every track. You dont want to be smashing the songs to the top or "clipping." Really if you are comfortable with the mix of all your songs then you just give them the bounced .WAV (im sure other formats are accepted but .wav is preferred).

Just so you understand that mastering is not intended to do your mixing for you and just make your mixes better. Its safe to say that it probably will but dont think a bad mix will be fixed by mastering. Its commonly heard around here.
 
(Word).

Be happy with the mixes when they go out. You should be able to crank them up until God calls up and tells you to turn it the [SELF-CENSORED] down.

That doesn't mean they should have a high perceived volume level... Save that. Go ahead and "test-ram" your mixes into a limiter to see if anything freaky happens (many are surprised by what happens) - Then turn the limiter off and fix it. Leave at least a dB or two of "natural" (no limiting or excessive compression on the 2-buss) headroom, export 24-bit PCM (.wav, .aiff, etc.) mixes at the project's native sample rate and go.
 
Pretty much what John said and a few other things to consider:

- Keep you sample rate and bit depth the same as what ever the session was tracked and mixed at. ie: if you recorded at 48k 24 bit, mix down at that rate and send that file (wav or aiff).

- Check that there is no clipping (channels or plugs). Your peak level can be anywhere under -1 dBfs. Having peaking lower is even better but not required.

- If you are using plugs or processing on the master channel and are not quite sure about it, you can send a version with and also a version without and have a discussion with the ME about which version might get the best end result.

- leave a little space (1 sec) before and after the song. If there is a definite fade that you prefer, I would suggest just to go ahead and do it, you can also send the ME detailed notes concerning the fades.

- If you have a song that you like and want to use for a reference for preferred level and sonic's, I would supply that as well. This can be used to give some direction, but is definitely not required either.

- Do not use a limiter.

- Let the ME know what you are looking for as far as final sound and level or if you have any specific concerns or anything you might want to bring to their attention about the recording.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the responses guys! Some great tips there.
In terms of limiting, would you then suggest to have the levels low enough so there are no threats of it going passed -1db? I also don't want to do my mixdown too quiet for anyone to work with, or is that not possible?

Are there any other functions I should steer clear of? Such as compression?
 
With regard to limiting don't use it to compete with an already mastered CD. You should save the decision on what the final level should be when all songs have been brought together on the album and compared to each other as a whole.

In addition to the suggestions above, listen for frequency imbalances between tracks. For example, bright hi hats and dull snare. Once everything has been mixed together in stereo it is more difficult to fix issues like this.

As far as what to use and what not to use, use anything that makes the individual mix sound better, save processing that will make "the album as a whole" sound better for the mastering stage.
 
Muffin said:
would you then suggest to have the levels low enough so there are no threats of it going passed -1db?
Click to expand...
Yes. That should always be the case anyway. There's no reason for your mix to ever go near -1db.
I also don't want to do my mixdown too quiet for anyone to work with, or is that not possible?
Click to expand...

Not possible...unless your mix peaks at -60. A mastering engineer will never have a problem with a mix that's "too low". The same can't be said for a mix with no head room.

Basically, get the mix to sound as close to the desired finished product as you can, without worrying about the volume. Don't expect mastering to make it "sound pro" if the mix doesn't already sound "pro". Don't put any EQ or compression on your master mix (not to be confused with putting compression and EQ on individual tracks, which is part of what you should be doing in your mixdown, if needed).
 
RAMI said:
Yes. That should always be the case anyway. There's no reason for your mix to ever go near -1db.

Not possible...unless your mix peaks at -60. A mastering engineer will never have a problem with a mix that's "too low". The same can't be said for a mix with no head room.

Basically, get the mix to sound as close to the desired finished product as you can, without worrying about the volume. Don't expect mastering to make it "sound pro" if the mix doesn't already sound "pro". Don't put any EQ or compression on your master mix (not to be confused with putting compression and EQ on individual tracks, which is part of what you should be doing in your mixdown, if needed).
Click to expand...

Great info there thank-you. So no effects no nothing on the master channel? But I'm free to EQ and compress the individual tracks?
 
Massive Master said:
Go ahead and "test-ram" your mixes into a limiter to see if anything freaky happens (many are surprised by what happens) - Then turn the limiter off and fix it.
Click to expand...

Would you mind explaining this alittle more? I'm not quite sure what you mean.
 
Muffin said:
Would you mind explaining this alittle more? I'm not quite sure what you mean.
Click to expand...

The current "standard" is to do horrible, destructive, soul-crushing things to a recording in the mastering process because a bunch of mooks are positive that listeners will think the song is better if they have to turn their volume knobs down.

Naturally, the act of doing horrible, destructive, soul-crushing things to your mix might make it sound awful. So you can strap a limiter on your mix before hand and do horrible, destructive, soul-crushing things yourself to see how your song reacts.

Then you say "Ah ha. That is how my music will be killed". Then you take the limiter off and send the good mix off for mastering. When it comes back sounding like loud shit, you are expecting it and don't die of a heart attack.




The other option is to simply instruct the mastering engineer to not do anything horrible, destructive, or soul-crushing to your music. The mastering engineer will be happy as a pig in slop to hear this, and you won't have to bother checking your mix with a limiter. Oh, and your final product won't suck.
 
Muffin said:
Would you mind explaining this alittle more? I'm not quite sure what you mean.
Click to expand...
It's similar to what many do with simpler compression. When you compress or limit a mix, often times this will tend to unintendedly emphasize "badness" within the mix that is otherwise masked before the gain reduction is applied.

By "test smashing" the mix, one can reveal the masked problems - i.e. you will hear in which way the mix turns bad by exposing bad frequencies or times in the mix that wind up sounding otherwise bad. This allows you to go back and preemptively fix those masked problems in the mix, further allowing the mastering engineer more leeway to do his job without those problems rearing their ugly heads.

G.
 
I think it can be said to that digital limiters are not always used in mastering.

Doing a rock-a-billy album today with no digital signal processing (all analog)
Goin for the Sun Studios thing.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
By "test smashing" the mix, one can reveal the masked problems - i.e. you will hear in which way the mix turns bad by exposing bad frequencies or times in the mix that wind up sounding otherwise bad. This allows you to go back and preemptively fix those masked problems in the mix, further allowing the mastering engineer more leeway to do his job without those problems rearing their ugly heads.

G.
Click to expand...

That's funny:laughings: ...almost in a parnoid kinda way. Why purposely distort your mix? Make it sound as good as you can and hopefully the mastering engineer will take your money for doing nothing :cool:
 
mixmkr said:
That's funny:laughings: ...almost in a parnoid kinda way. Why purposely distort your mix? Make it sound as good as you can and hopefully the mastering engineer will take your money for doing nothing :cool:
Click to expand...
You don't leave it distorted, you just do it as a test. It's not a bad idea even if you never even send it to a mastering engineer. It's no different in general concept than using a high gain parametric sweep to "distort" a track or a mix in order to find bad resonants in a track and notch them out.

Even when I am just using standard compression as part of the mixing process, if/when I hear that the compression inadvertently wind up boosting some lower amplitude stuff in the signal that I don't like boosted, I'll usually go back and undo the compression and fix that in the raw track before I recompress.

And if/when I can sending stuff to a mastering engineer, I certainly don't expect him to fix problems in my mix that I should be fixing myself. "I'm* doing the mixing, he's doing the mastering. The fewer problems with the mix that I send him the happier I'll be with myself.

G.
 
I understand completely. Just got a chuckle previously.

and realize the "perfect" mix needs no mastering...hence my comment.
 
mixmkr said:
I understand completely. Just got a chuckle previously.

and realize the "perfect" mix needs no mastering...hence my comment.
Click to expand...
Every mix needs mastering no matter how perfect (if I want to get annoying with semantics).

...unless the end listener is playing your song back on 1/2 inch reel to reel tape or 24 bit wav or whatever. The simple act of changing to a file format people can use is mastering.
 
Chibi Nappa said:
Every mix needs mastering no matter how perfect (if I want to get annoying with semantics).

...unless the end listener is playing your song back on 1/2 inch reel to reel tape or 24 bit wav or whatever. The simple act of changing to a file format people can use is mastering.
Click to expand...

and maybe the "perfect mix" doesn't need file conversion. ...if you're going into "legalistic land".

I might think you're verging into editing VS mastering anyway, unless you consider editing a subset of mastering.
 
Waltz Mastering said:
I think it can be said to that digital limiters are not always used in mastering.

Doing a rock-a-billy album today with no digital signal processing (all analog)
Goin for the Sun Studios thing.
Click to expand...

That's always a great change from the slam 'em as far as possible. I'm working on an album now where the client is going for a Steely Dan type of sound. While still using a digital limiter slightly to contain the kick the rest of the chain is analog. On a really good day I can just get away with my tube EQ and maybe a touch of compression.

BTW Tom, how does it look on the RTA? :-)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top