Mastering tips and tricks

richie_stix said:
Pretty much spot on, but i have corrected your post to be more accurate... mastering should be done in a mastering suite, and i assume most of us on here don't have one!
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This, even if its only a small amount of work to be done it'll do the world of good.

Mastering on nearfield monitors isnt ideal either, take a look at any decent mastering studios and they'll more than likely have nearfields for reference but have a set of large monitors aswel.
 
i think philosophy will help you understand a lot of the words flying around, such as warmth, fatness, etc. people talk about mastering usually mean mixdown. mixdown is the indivudual tracks, such as in the DAW or in a multi track recording enviroment, whereas mastering is the full render wave file of the whole tune. it takes a while before you can discern the fundamentals of anything if youre just going to read production forums and articles and so on, and when you do, you see that its more of a philosophical discussion because these terms are 100% subjective but still kind of... still apply, which lands us very much in philosophy or metaphysics or
 
I see what you mean about getting to know it just by reading forums, theres a lot of people who post up stuff they dont actualy know about etc.

Producing definately is subjective, not least because an electronic music "producer" does near enough the whole process from writing and arranging, through to mixing down etc, whereas a "producer" in terms of live music is someone who works with the artist to achieve a certain result.

I wouldnt say things like mixing down and mastering are really subjective though, they are what they say on the tin, I look at it like fabricating, welding, and painting are all part of the process of making a car, but theyre completely different processes in theirselves.
 
there is a lot you read about which wont make you any smarter unless you have your own profound understanding of what you think itll sound like. such as warmth. i chased warmth for a long time before i even begun to understand what to really make of it.
so warmth is an annoying term, and there is a lot of pseudo science about production and before youre in tune with the philosophical side of it you are likely to fall victim to it, because as long as somebodys selling youre likely to be buying unless you really know what you want. i know i still am succeptible, just less than before is all
 
My mastering tip to get your mix sounding 'loud': Learn how to use a good limiting plugin like PSP Xenon. That's what I use and you can really pump up the volume.
 
:wave:I am new here so here is my first useful post in here.Here is something that helped me immensely, which I have to give props to :not_worthMAC from dubstep forum and dogs on acid for helping me figure this out. When looking a meter during mix downs here is a simple guideline for where you different elements should be peaking in correspondence to each other. Remember you are "filling a space" as you add elements so to speak.

so here goes:

solo each element to get a read on you meter for where it is peaking.

if your drums tracks are peaking at -9db your sub should be somewhere around -12 or -13db, and your mid to top range bass peaking somewhere below -15 db, and everything else peaking under wear the mid range is peaking for the most part. It really all depends on how it sounds to you in the end as well, but this is a good guideline to follow when starting off a track to keep everything from getting cluttered and makes the final mixdown allot easier. This also of course pertains to the fact that your sounds have to be eqed/compressed properly as well.

hope this helps someone.
:)
 
I'm new-ish to this forum and have just been reading threads posted by you guys but I just wanted to thanks to the guy who started this thread as it's been really helpful for me!

Also, thanks to everyone else who has posted here!

Thanks!
John.
 
Some mix down trips on how to fill dynamic space....

Think of the mix as a sound filling a 3 dimensional space. Thats is left - right, front to back, and up and down... And in laymans terms:

back to front is level, obviously in decibel, the louder an element is the further 'forward' it will seem when played.

left to right is the stereo field... elements that are mono are different to a central stereo sound, they sit more 'centrally' in the mix and are more prominant. Rule of thumb is the most important low elements should be mono or at least centred, ie kick, bass (sub bass that is) and snare (although, thats not to say some elements/layers of the snare can't be moved around) as this is what gives the track it's main 'groove' and thats what you dance to!

and then up and down is the frequency, that should be pretty obvious how that fits together... this is where the EQ comes into play, and how you can remove un-necessary frequencies as other instruments producing that frequency will trick our brain into believing it is there (however, should a sound EQ'd like this be played in isolation, you will need it on a seperate channel with a different EQ or use EQ automation to change it as and when!

hope this helps, really helped me!

And one last trick about 'filling' the space... our brains need a point of reference, we need something quiet to tell us something is loud, so don't try to fill the mix to much, leave some breathing space for instruments as it will give your tune more punch and movement!
 
A really simple but effective tip is:

Always leave head room. People that do post-production like to have some wiggle room. If your tune is pushing read from all different directions when it hits the mastering house they are gonna be retaining elements of your track and not enriching them.

So a simple rule of thumb is green on every channel and no spikes into red!
 
hey gusys, 10 really usefull tips just for ya.. ;)

1. Using reverb can push elements towards the back of the soundstage. If you want to add some
reverb, but still keep the sound “up front”, try increasing the amount of pre-delay on the sound. This
will detach the sound from its reverb, so your element remains more “up front” while you still have
a nice reverb effect.

2. When using reverb/s, make use of busses with the reverb/s on them, and send your channels
to the busses. This not only saves on CPU, but also makes the reverb much easier to control. Just
moving a couple of faders on our busses can make the overall mix “wetter” or “dryer”.

3. As a general rule, leave all of your mix automation somewhere towards the end of the mixing
process. Get your mix and arrangement sounding good, then go in and add your automation tweaks.

4. It’s good practice to include a spectrum analyzer on your master bus and a great track that you’d
like to emulate as part of your autoload. As you go along making your track, try A/B-ing your track
against the track you want to emulate and analyzing each with the spectrum analyzer. This will help
you get a sense of what elements of your track need boosting, cutting etc to get a great mix.

5. Don’t get caught up in the “I must have every new plugin” game. Find ones that you really like and
focus on mastering them before you add more. Learn your craft.

6. If you like to gate things to your drums, create a dedicated sidechain trigger track – so you can
keep those nice pumping effects even when your main drums are muted. This can be as simple as
copying your drums to another channel with no output (or muted) and having things sidechained to
that channel.

7. It’s often a good approach to lay down the musical elements of your track before writing any
basslines – the musical elements will help give your bassline direction and ensure that they all fit
together nicely.

8. Using vocal samples? Pay attention to the key and transpose them so that they match the key of
your track – if you aren’t sure about this see our post on understanding key. Once you’ve found a
nice fit, a good trick on energetic tracks is to then tune the sample up by 10-20 cents. The slightly
sharper tone with give your vocals a bit more punch, as many vocalists tend to sing slightly flat.

9. Want to fatten up that synth sound? Tune one of the oscillators on your synth down an octave (12
semitones). Tuning an oscillator up 7 semitones also gives you a nice open-5th sound, which works
great on big pads or leads.

10. Planning on taking your Ableton track somewhere else to work on it? Don’t forget to use
the “Collect all and save” feature when saving it. This will make sure that all of your project files are
collected from wherever they may be on your computer and packed nicely into a handy folder that
you can throw on your drive. No more getting there and realizing that you’re missing a few of the
key audio clips!


https://soundcloud.com/emphonic

https://soundcloud.com/emphonic%2Fsounddesign

;)
 
A Couple More Tips
  1. I don't think it has been mentioned yet: one sure fire way to check your mixdown is to sum the entire mix to mono and A/B it with its stereo counterpart. This will allow you to identify any possible phasing issues that would harm the overall mix by cancelling out certain sounds and making it less impactful when played on a club system. To add, it will increase the quality of your master. Ideally, you want it to sound almost as good in mono as it does in stereo.
  2. Take frequent breaks when mixing and try not focus on a particular frequency for too long. Doing so is just asking for listerner's fatigue, which in turn will lead to your ears playing "tricks" on what your're hearing.
  3. Reference the fuck out of the track by playing it on any system you come across–your phone, shitty kitchen stereo, your friend's badass car stereo, your creepy Uncle's boombox, etc. The goal is to have the mix sound great on any audio system.
  4. Use a metering plugin within your DAW to observe the levels of an established artists' professional track. Then do the same to your track taking note of what frequencies require a boost or attenuation. Logic's metering tools are great for this, but most DAW's should have some type of tool for this. If not, I believe Voxengo offers a free analyzer.
  5. Always check ahead of time with your mastering house to find out the following: A) The type of file format they prefer (wav, aiff). B) Their preferred bit resolution (16, 24) and sampling rate (44.1, 88.2, etc.) C) The most important question: the amount of headroom they prefer.

Cheers!
 
Haven't had time yet to read this whole sick thread, but when i open fl studio, there is a limiter on the master channel. Is it good to leave it there or not?
 
prettyherb said:
Haven't had time yet to read this whole sick thread, but when i open fl studio, there is a limiter on the master channel. Is it good to leave it there or not?
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Definitely take it off prior to bouncing down your final mix. Every mastering house I've dealt with has always explicitly stated to never have any plugins on the master out.

Cheers.
 
lostnthesound said:
Definitely take it off prior to bouncing down your final mix. Every mastering house I've dealt with has always explicitly stated to never have any plugins on the master out.

Cheers.
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Better yet, take it off before you start doing anything.

It will make you think everything in the track sounds better or louder or whatever than it actually does. And that's bad.
 
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