spitfire909x said:
Hey all. I have a firepod and Sonar 5, and I've been getting some pretty good recordings of my band. I'm far from a pro at mixing and stuff, but the recordings definately don't sound too bad through my monitors, and I've checked them through headphones and my car stereo as well.
I'm just wondering where to start with mastering. What do I need? Reasonably priced that is, are there any plugins for sonar that would help me? Do I need seperate software completely? Thanks all.
Psssst.....(whispering)....It's early, and hopefully the dragons are asleep. They chew up and spit out the bones of those who would dare to think they can explore self mastering. Here's a couple of tips if you want to try this treacherous path.
Room - You've got to know that your room is reasonably flat. Don't even think of trying this in an untreated room, and I don't mean just gluing some foam to the walls. Bass traps are a must.
Monitor Chain - It's gotta be accurate and it's gotta cover the entire audio spectrum. If you can't hear the Low lows, you're in the dark.
Converters - Kind of part of the monitor chain, but deserves it's own catagory. You should have better than semi-pro D/A.
If the above items are up to snuff, then you need one more thing to be able to think about Mastering - ears. You need to be able to hear, know what you're hearing, and know what needs to be done. Now here's the rub - if you mixed it, what are you correcting in mastering? Mastering is generally where someone with a LOT of money invested in just a few pieces of gear, a set of golden ears, a lot of experience, and a detached perspective on the project fixes what's wrong with the mixes. So, the argument goes, if you mixed it, then what are you going to fix, in the same room with the same equipment and the same perspective? That's why it is without a doubt better to have your project professionally mastered. But there are things you can do that make sense, if lesser sense than sending it out. Let a couple of days fall between any mixing and self mastering though, or your mastering hat won't fit.
1. Individual track level optimization: Don't enlist in the volume wars, but get the individual tracks up to a respectable level. Start by analyzing the waveforms of the mix files, and look for a few peaks that are well above the norm, and edit them into compliance with the avarage peaks. Then you can try some of the various Limiter/Maximizer plugins like the Waves L1/L2/L3 (Expensive), Digital Fishphones Endorphin (free), or some of the in between stuff (Voxengo makes some very good moderately priced stuff). The idea with all of these is too squeeze out a few extra db without killing the dynamics. Go easy.
2. Sequencing: You can do this just as well as the ME. Arrange the tracks as they will appear on the CD, and adjust the lead in times and fades.
3. EQ continuity: Sometimes as you listen to the tracks together in the project, you hear that what you thought was the right overall spectral distributon of each song sounds a bit too dissimilar in the context of the project as a whole. EQ tweaks at this stage should be small. If not, go back to the mixing stage for that song. There are some EQ's that are less surgical and more suited as program EQs, like the Pultech. There are others, do your homework.
4. Level continuity: All songs in the project don't necessarily have the same apparent loudness, even when they meter the same. And sometimes they don't want to be as loud. Again, listen to the project as a whole and see if the perceived are good from song to song, or if you find yourself wanting to turn one track up, and another track down. Get it to flow.
5. Set the markers for redbook compatibility.
6. Burn a CD, go listen on a bunch of playback systems, take notes, tweak, repeat till satisfied that it sounds good on various systems at various levels.
Uh oh, the dragons are waking up, and I better run. If you intend to release a CD, do yourself a favor and have it professionally mastered. But I think it's a lot of fun, and can be reasonably effective to learn some of this stuff yourself. Just don't kid yourself, it's a real skill that can never be accomplished by clicking on a couple of presets in a couple of "mastering plugins" or a "mastering suite".
Regards,
RD
