processing the overall mix question..

[kranky]

Just curious to hear what processing people use to master the overall mix.
Thanks!

 

[Blue Bear Sound]

A mastering house........

 

[kranky]

I'm a stupid noob.... a mastering house?

 

[Simman]

Depends on what your intentions are. Are you planning on commercial release or distributing demos to clubs, family & friends, etc? There's a considerable difference in quality, not to mention cost.

 

[kranky]

let me give a little more info. I run Nuendo 2.0 and have a Soundcraft Delta 200 console and very little outboard processing. I run my studio out of my house where I record demos and such for local bands in the town where I live. Mostly rock, punk, and metal. Let me know if you need more info!

 

[Massive Master]

The only thing I can tell you is that there are no "magic" processing tools. Every mix, every CD, every double-live album is a unique project that should be approached with absolutely no preconceived notions on what processing should be applied until the mix is analyzed.

John Scrip - www.massivemastering.com

 

[kranky]

Makes perfect sense.

 

[chessrock]

Just slap a ton of reverb accross the final mix and normalize it with a peak limiter and you'll be fine.

 

[shackrock]

what everyone means is....
izytope ozone - DX software, unless you want to spend 100+ bucks an hour to a proffesional (who will no doubt make it a lot better than it is. hahahaha!)

 

[distortedrumble]

Just slap a ton of reverb accross the final mix and normalize it with a peak limiter and you'll be fine.

oh yeah baby....same way i do it minus the reverb.....2 cds sold and counting LOL well 2 cds come up to about a 700 sold but hey...its a start I think i'll do it again...COME ON BIG MONEY! BOOYA!

 

[lpdeluxe]

Chessrock, I think I've been hearing a LOT of stuff you've mastered on the radio!

 

[DaveDrummer]

make sure the waveform looks like a 2x4!

 

[chessrock]

Exactly. Just keep on going until it looks like it got hit over the head with an anvil.

 

[lpdeluxe]

Wow. I learn SO MUCH just sitting at the feet of the masters!

 

[masteringhouse]

A mastering house........

Blue Bear is right.

If your intentions are to produce a commercially viable CD you should have someone with a dedicated room and equipment to process the overall mix. Any form of DSP processing that you apply to the overall mix degrades the sound further by introducing quantization error and other artifacts. Additionally if you add compression you may damage the audio to the point that a mastering engineer will not be able to recover lost transients and headroom.

A mastering house will use gear that is dedicated to this process using EQs and compressors costing thousands of dollars. A plugin is simply not going to have the same quality. Also a mastering engineer will serve as an objective listener which can be extremely helpful if you're listening to your material in the the same room, same speakers, and with the same pair of ears.

That said, if you're budget-constrained and just want to fool around, the first step isn't deciding what gear to use, it's deciding what your material needs.

First complete your mixes and create a CD without any processing. Compare these CDs to a commercial CD of the same style and listen objectively. If they sound close, you're done. If not, decide what you can do to the individual elements of the mix to fix it before slapping on something on the main stereo buss.

Once you have the mix to the point where you feel that you can improve it no further, make a list of the things that bother you. Is it level? Then start working with a combination of a separate compressor and limiter. Is it frequency balance? Find out the frequencies that are innappropriate using a spectral analyser or by "sweeping" a parametric EQ and EQ them out. In some cases you may want to try a multi-band compression to raise or lower those areas, for example sibilance or a bloated bottom end.

Always keep the unprocessed version of the mix in as high quality as possible and master from this version. For example if you can bounce or render the file to 24 bit, keep it there, don't bounce to a 16 bit 44.1K until the last step and dither at this stage. Also if you decide later that you can afford to send your material to a mastering house, the engineer will have a better version to work from.

There's alot more to this, but hopefully this will get you started ...

 

[btr31]

obviously he runs the masterhouse and wants your money. heh

 

[masteringhouse]

obviously he runs the masterhouse and wants your money. heh

Maybe, but I also want to create great sounding audio.

 

[btr31]

oh, well of course. not that if you make a good sounding product i wouldn't want you to maybe do mine too. i do need to find a mastering house. but, just pointing out the obivous

 

[Gidge]

http://www.theprojectstudiohandbook.com/articles9.htm